


Through The Dark

by orphan_account



Series: Through The Dark [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-17 11:29:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 43,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel Novak is a low level reporter for the New York Post, up until he gets his big break: ASL star Dean Winchester has broken a goal scoring record and Castiel has been assigned to his personal story, meaning two weeks of close proximities. Except, the thing is; they've kind of got history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is approximately 45k words and has already been completed, so no worry of abandonment. There are eighteen chapters, and it will be updated every Monday and Friday.

Castiel Novak is sitting at his desk on a Monday morning, eyes bleary and tired behind his glasses as he tries resolutely to concentrate on the article he’s writing and not the way the wooden desk would feel so, so comfortable if he were to rest his head on it. The words on the screen are blurring, merging into patterns that resemble nothing like the public interest story that he’s meant to be writing up. He takes off his glasses, rubs at his eyes and tries to convince himself that he did get enough hours sleep last night, that he didn’t stay up until 4am rewriting a perfectly good article that’s not deadlined for another two weeks.

It’s when he’s got both eyes shut that he hears a voice that startles them back open.

“Jesus, Cassy,” Balthazar exclaims, obnoxiously loud and British, just like always. “You look absolutely knackered.”

“You say the sweetest things,” Castiel replies scowling, sarcasm dripping off his words with loud splashes against the desk as he puts his glasses back on. Balthazar is stood beside Castiel’s office – or, well; the small booth containing a laptop and stationary that counts as Castiel’s office. He’s leaning against the low wall, hands in his pockets and grinning beatifically, entirely undeterred by the glare Castiel is sending his way.

“Don’t worry about it, I’d still do you,” he says, smiling easily like he’s not already propositioning Castiel at seven in the morning. Castiel just rolls his eyes, used to it after four years of working with Balthazar and his relentlessly flirtatious nature. “But anyway, that’s not why I’m here: the big bad boss wants to see you in his office.”

Something grips inside of Castiel’s stomach. “What does he want?” he asks worriedly. Balthazar just laughs.

“No need to look so worried, Cassy,” he answers, rolling his eyes and smiling. “He didn’t seem like he was on the rampage. Plus what would he even have to shout at you about? Working too hard? Spending too many hours at the office? Having too little of a life outside of these walls?”

Castiel glares at him again. “Just because I am better at my job than you are does not warrant this bitterness.”

Balthazar is, predictably, not offended. Insults just seem to roll off of him like water off a duck’s back, and Castiel has always wondered whether that’s why they’re such good friends: because Balthazar is the only one willing to put in the time and effort to press past Castiel’s hostile exterior and keep going until Castiel has no choice but to call him friend.

So Balthazar just continues to look at Castiel, smiling and tapping his fingers against the wood of Castiel’s desk. “Are you going then?” he asks, smirking.

“Yes,” Castiel grumbles, saving his document and standing up, fixing his blue tie that seems to be, for some reason, permanently askew. He purposely knocks his shoulder against Balthazar’s when he passes by on the way to Mr. Adler’s office, and Balthazar just laughs out loud at his puerility.

It’s a short walk to his boss’ office, and when he reaches the huge mahogany door he allows himself a second to breathe. See, as much as Balthazar had tried to alleviate Castiel’s worry, Mr. Adler is, for want of a better word, an asshole. He shouts over barely anything, complains when people finish their work on the day of a deadline instead of one week before, and is generally heavily disliked amongst the employees. Castiel inhales slowly, steals himself for the possibility of getting yelled at for something he probably hadn’t even done, and then raises his knuckle to knock.

“Come in,” is called after a while, and Castiel opens the door, steps through, and closes it behind him.

Inside Mr. Adler is sat at his desk, papers spread out over the wood and a pompously expensive computer running on the left. He takes barely a second to glance up at Castiel before he returns his attention to the banquet of food that he is currently eating.

“Mr. Novak,” he greets around a mouthful of bagel. “I’ve been expecting you for a while. What took you so long?”

Castiel frowns and Mr. Adler is so intent on eating that he doesn’t see it. “The offices only opened half an hour ago.”

His boss seems not to deem this an adequate reason, and so he waves a hand through the air dismissively. “Just don’t let it happen again,” he says, and Castiel stays quiet because he really likes his job, jerk boss aside.

“What was it that you wanted to see me about, sir?” he asks, fiddling with the cuffs of his white shirt. Mr. Adler looks up then, like he’s remembered that there actually is a point to him calling Castiel into his office, and it’s not just so that he can berate him unwarrantedly.

“Oh yes,” he says, and then he signals for Castiel to take a seat with a flick of his hand in the direction of the chair opposite his desk. Castiel sits down and waits for Mr. Adler to elaborate. “I have a new project for you to work on. A very high profile and important one, in fact, so you’ll have to abandon anything else you’re working on right now in favour of this.”

Castiel’s stomach lifts improbably high. “A – A high profile article?” he asks, disbelief lacing his voice, because he’s used to being the newbie, even after four years here. He’s used to being the youngest reporter, the baby twenty-five year old who doesn’t know the industry well enough yet to cover the big news, the stuff people actually care about. So this – this could be his big break.

Mr. Adler smiles and it resembles that of a shark baring his teeth. Castiel suppresses a shudder.

“Yes, Mr. Novak. I know you usually cover the lesser stories, but we believe this one is for you.”

Castiel vaguely wonders who the hell ‘we’ is, but brushes over the thought in order to find out more about his new project. “So what’s the article about?” he asks, eager to get started as soon as possible.

“It’s a sports related piece,” he answers, and Castiel frowns. “I know you usually don’t cover sports but this is a more personal piece. It’s about the athlete himself, actually; a kind of ‘week with’ article that allows the public into his personal life as opposed to just his professional.”

“Oh,” Castiel says, mulling the idea over in his head. “So I’d be doing what, exactly?”

“Just following the guy around, mostly: finding out all about him and his life, not just his career. It’ll be a job that takes a few weeks, so you’ll be able to get to know the guy well enough to write an in depth piece.”

Castiel thinks for a while. “Ok,” he says, eventually, the hint of a smile around his lips, because he wants this job and he wants to show the world – or, at least, the readership at the New York Post – that he’s good enough for this. “Why is this article being written now, though? Is something special happening?”

He asks because he knows that all the sport seasons are over, so it’s not as if there are any championship games coming up that would warrant this. He tries to think, hard, of any kind of sporting event that he could be covering, or anything significant occurring. All he can come up with is –

No. _Shit_.

“It’s a soccer player over at the Red Bulls. Winchester, his name is. Dean Winchester,” Mr. Adler answers, totally oblivious to the panic that is now coursing through Castiel’s entire body. “Last season he broke the record for most goals scored for a single club in ASL history and he’s only twenty-five. It’s all very impressive, if you’re into that kind of thing. The higher ups want to write an article on him, because he’s such a notorious recluse – excuse the contradiction of terms – and they managed to get him to agree this time.”

Castiel’s mouth runs dry. His head is swimming, spinning, plummeting downwards along with his stomach. This can’t be happening. It can’t be. _Shit_.

“How,” Castiel starts, his voice so cracked and broken that he has to cough in order to regain its normalcy. “How did they convince him to do that? He never does interviews. Ever.”

Mr. Adler’s eyes flick left before he answers. “I guess they just paid him enough money this time.” Castiel inhales and then exhales, slow and deep and calming. But it’s not working, because his feet are itching to run a mile and his skin feels all too tight. “So, are you in, Mr. Novak?”

“I –” Castiel starts, and then stops. Is he? He’s not sure he can. But this is his big break, his _finally_ coming around, letting him make his way up, make his way to where he’s wanted to be ever since he was ten and young and idealistic. So he makes a decision. A stupid one. “Yes. Ok. I’m in.”

Mr. Adler beams. It’s greatly disconcerting. “Excellent. You have a meeting tomorrow morning with Winchester’s PA to go through the necessary documents. I’ll send you an email with all the details. You can take the rest of the day off in order to learn as much about him before tomorrow. Don’t want to go offending the talent by having him think he’s not famous enough, after all.”

He smiles disingenuously one last time before he turns back to his food, clearly having decided that the conversation is over. Castiel takes the hint and stands up, walks over to the door, pausing only to thank his boss for the opportunity before walking back over to his office booth.

Balthazar is still there, spinning around in Castiel’s chair and fiddling with Castiel’s pens and staplers like a child. “Cassy!” he greets, stopping in his circle and looking up at Castiel, grinning. “What did the prick want then?”

“He offered me a project,” Castiel replies absently, bending down to pick up his messenger bag and packing the necessary belongings back into it. “A big one, actually. A real feature that’ll get a lot of readers’ interest.”

Balthazar frowns. “That’s a good thing, right?” Castiel nods, picking up his laptop and putting it into his bag. Balthazar’s frown deepens. “Then why the hell do you look like someone ran over your puppy?”

“I don’t own a puppy.”

“That’s not the point,” Balthazar says exasperatedly, standing up and wrapping a hand around Castiel’s wrist to get him to actually look at him. “You’ve just been given a brilliant opportunity for your career, so what’s wrong?”

Castiel stops, looks up, looks at Balthazar, his friend, one of the few. The words are in his mouth, lying heavy on his tongue, ready to fall out after all this time. They’re so close, on the tip, but –

But he can’t.

“Nothing,” he says instead, shaking his head and, as a consequence, shaking Balthazar’s hand off, too. “It _is_ great. I’m fine. Honestly. I’m going home now to do research. I – I’ll see you when I see you, ok?”

Balthazar purses his lips unhappily, but he acquiesces. “Fine, go home and do research. But don’t think I’m letting this go that easily.”

Castiel rolls his eyes. “There’s nothing to let go of,” he responds, and then turns away before Balthazar catches the untruth that lies so heavily in his words.

He walks quickly, down the elevator, out of the building, back into his Toyota, and doesn’t stop to think at all until he’s back in the safety of his apartment. There, he lets himself sink onto the couch, knees curled up against his chest, hands opening and closing in mid air like they’re looking for something, waiting for something. His apartment is bare and cold, and as he looks around his home of the past four years it hits him.

Dean. Winchester. He has to write an article on Dean Winchester. He has to spend two weeks – maybe more – in close proximity to Dean Winchester. He – he can’t do this. He can’t see Dean, spend time with Dean, talk to Dean. He’s not ready, it’s not been long enough, he –

No. He has to. This is his job, this is his big break. He has to forget everything that came before and just be professional, act like the past never happened. He can do this.

Decision made, he spends the rest of the day collating soccer statistics that he’s already too painfully aware of, and writing up notes on a man he doesn’t need to research to know. There’s an ache in his chest all the while, dull and constant, and he has to ignore it the whole time, right up until the point where he curls up in bed, sets an alarm for the morning and falls asleep thinking of eighteen and warm nights and a black, shiny car.


	2. Chapter 2

The morning comes, bright and bleary and terrifying. Castiel wakes up to the sound of his alarm chirping in his ear, and he shuts it off before swinging his legs over the side of the bed and rubbing his eyes tiredly. He immediately goes for a shower, allowing the warm water to wash some of the tension out of his body. Except the second he steps out into the cold air it rushes back to him, hitting him like a freight train and making his muscles seize up with nerves.

 _I can do this_ , he tells himself, forcing his limbs to coordinate and get dressed into his usual black pants, white shirt and blue tie. It’s not long before he’s ready and grabbing his car keys, ready to drive the horrible morning commute to Fifth Avenue, where the offices for the meeting are. The whole drive his fingers twitch agitatedly, every red light an apparent sign that he should just turn around, run away, give up on his entire career if it means he won’t have to do this, see him.

He doesn’t stop, though. He drives and drives until he’s at his destination, pulling into the parking lot to the side of the building and collecting his things together quickly, not giving himself anymore time to pause and think and worry. It’s not far to get inside, and then even less time to climb the stairs to the right floor, so he’s barely had time to breathe in and out before he’s standing in front of the right door, fingers flexing into a fist as he readies himself to go in.

Dean won’t be inside, right? The meeting is with Dean’s PA, not Dean himself, so Castiel still has some time to prepare himself for that. He assures himself of this knowledge, takes a deep breath, and then knocks once on the door, not waiting for the permission for entry before he opens it and walks through.

The room is open and airy, several potted plants dotted around, looking expensive and unnecessary. One of the walls is just a giant window, a gorgeous view outside, all colourful, busy streets and expansive blue skies. There’s a big mahogany table in its centre, and sitting at it is a woman in her forties, looking all business in a suit and carefully styled hair. But next to her is –

“Sam,” Castiel breathes, taken by surprise. “I – I wasn’t expecting you.”

Sam smiles shyly at him, looking up from underneath his bangs. “Hi, Cas,” he says, biting at his bottom lip. “No, it’s just. I heard that you were going to be writing this article and I wanted to come see you. For old time’s sake. It’s – it’s been a while, you know?”

Castiel just keeps staring. “Yes,” he replies, still too dumbfounded to be cohesive.

The lady in a suit – presumably Dean’s PA – coughs pointedly. “Mr. Novak,” she directs, gaining Castiel’s attention. “If you’d like to take a seat?”

Castiel does automatically, unable to look away from Sam. _Sam_ , for Christ’s sake. He never thought he’d get to see Sam again. The woman starts talking again and Castiel forces himself to look at her, now.

“Today is just to fill out some routine documents, just some wavers and agreements. Contracts really, to be formal. They’re just to say that you will respect Mr. Winchester’s privacy when necessary, and that given access to his personal life, you will not abuse that privilege in any way.”

Castiel has to concentrate very hard so as to not snort in the face of the word privilege. Although, he thinks that Sam notices, from the way he is also trying to suppress a shy smirk while looking in Castiel’s direction.

“That sounds fine,” Castiel agrees, reaching out to take the papers that Dean’s PA is offering him. He looks over them quickly before signing them: he doesn’t want anything from Dean, anyway. Not anymore.

He finishes quickly and then hands them over, the lady smiling at him, vacant and insincere, as he does. “Excellent,” she says, pushing the papers to one side. She opens her mouth as if to speak, but is cut off by Castiel before she can start.

“Are you at Stanford now?” he asks, directing his words at Sam.

Sam blinks. “Yeah, I am,” he replies, laughing confusedly. “How did you know that?”

Castiel blushes. “I think I read it somewhere,” he mumbles, and ignores the knowing look Sam gives him. “How is it, anyway?”

“It’s great,” he answers, grinning widely. Castiel is aware the PA is sitting silently, a look of distaste on her face at the fact that she has to endure this catch up before she is able to do her job again. But she waits anyway, obviously knowing that she has to let her boss’ little brother talk as much as he wants, because Dean lets his little brother anything. Always did.

Castiel gives Sam a small smile. “I’m glad. I remember that you had your heart set on there, even when you were a child. And you’re studying law?”

Sam nods enthusiastically. “Yep. It’s just as amazing as I always expected it to be. I’m actually just here for the summer, visiting Dean with my girlfriend, Jess.”

“You have a girlfriend?” Castiel asks, a happy feeling blooming in his chest at the smile Sam gives him in return. It’s so – in love. Pure, and happy, like nothing else matters because there’s someone out there that loves you as much as you love them.

Castiel remembers the feeling.

“Yeah, Jess. She’s pretty fantastic, actually. She goes to Stanford, too. That’s where I met her. She’s so far out of my league, man. No idea what she’s doing with me, honestly.”

Castiel can’t help but smile back at him. “I’m happy for you,” he says, and Sam blushes even further.

“Thanks,” he responds, and then coughs and darts his eyes towards Dean’s PA. “Sorry, sorry. Carry on now. I swear I won’t interrupt again.”

The PA forces a smile. “It’s fine,” she says between gritted teeth. “But yes, let’s carry on. Next we have the schedule to finalise.”

She begins to reel off a list of things they need to do during the meeting, and Castiel does his best to try and pay attention. The rest of the meeting passes in the same fashion, with Sam and Castiel only intermittently exchanging words about what’s been going on with each of them ever since they – lost touch.

By the end, Castiel has arranged the next two weeks that he’ll be spending on the article – he refuses to think of it as _with Dean_ , purely for the sake of his sanity – and is all caught up on Sam’s life, as Sam is on his. The PA leaves before them, hurrying away on her BlackBerry, clearly very important and busy, and so it’s just Castiel and Sam in the room, the silence engulfing now that they’re alone. Now that they can talk.

“Cas,” Sam starts tentatively. Castiel continues to sort through his papers, not looking up because he knows where Sam is going now, and he’s not sure he’s ready. “Cas, I. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Castiel nods, still not looking at Sam. He can see out of his peripheral vision that Sam is shifting uncomfortably, fidgeting from foot to foot and wringing his hands in front of him.

“Cas,” Sam starts again, his voice quiet. “Cas, I – I am so sorry. About everything that happened.”

Castiel’s hands stop in the fastening of his bag. He sucks in a quick breath, closes his eyes before he replies. “It’s fine, Sam,” he says, even though it’s not. “I moved on. It’s forgotten. I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t handle this.”

He stands back up and is confronted with Sam, face dubious. “Are you sure, Cas? I mean you guys were –”

“It’s fine, Sam,” Castiel reiterates, cutting Sam off before he has to hear anymore. “Just leave it, please. I – I’m glad that I got to see you again. Maybe we can meet up sometime before you go back to Stanford? Somewhere less business related. I’d really like to meet Jess.”

Sam smiles, still wary and worried, but clearly willing to let Castiel go. “Yeah, that sounds nice. I’d like you to meet her.”

Castiel smiles, then, grateful and warm. Sam is his friend. He’s missed Sam. This is a part of the project he’s not worried about, because Sam is kind and funny and his girlfriend sounds about the same. He picks up his bag and walks to the door, turning around just before he opens it to wave once and then he’s out in the hallway.

And – _shit_. So is Dean.

Castiel stops, stock still, jaw hanging open and his body frozen in panic. Dean is the same, actually, just staring at Castiel, with those green, green eyes that Castiel used just stare into for hours, like there was nothing else in the world that could be more fascinating than the specks of gold and blue in his irises.

“I –” Dean starts, and then stops. They continue to stare at each other, Dean’s mouth opening and closing around sentences he can’t form, and Castiel too paralyzed in the moment to even attempt speech. Eventually Dean manages to talk. “I’m here to pick up Sammy. I thought you’d be gone by now.”

Castiel can’t respond, so he just stands there. He feels Sam behind him even before he hears his whispered _shit_ after a sharp intake of breath, but he doesn’t turn to him, he’s rooted to the spot, focused solely on Dean.

He looks the same, Castiel notes. Even after all these years. Even after he became a famous soccer star, a legend in the sport already by the age of twenty-five. He still has a light dusting of freckles across his cheeks, still the same short ashy blond hair. He’s even wearing the same leather jacket, the one that he was wearing the last time Castiel saw him, when they were eighteen and broken.

“Cas,” Dean says, his voice cracking over the single syllable. Hearing Dean say the nickname – the one he created back when they were ten – breaks Castiel out of his frozen state.

“I have to go,” he declares, blinking and then moving, fast, past Dean.

He all but runs down the stairs, almost tripping over his feet in his haste. He hears Sam calling his name in the background but ignores it, bounding out of the building and throwing himself into his car. He drives fast all the way home, speeding all the way because he needs to be out of the small space, needs to be in his own apartment that he knows and is familiar with.

He bursts into it, eventually, and heads straight for his bed. He climbs in and curls in on himself, breathes deep and slow, forces his eyes to stop stinging by closing them tightly and willing himself not to think about anything.

Except, of course, it doesn’t work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the next chapter will make everything more clear!


	3. Chapter 3

The Winchesters moved to Louisiana when Castiel was eight. He remembers the day clearly: seeing a moving van pull up to the house beside theirs, seeing a family of three pile out, all with pale faces and sad eyes. There had been a father and two boys: one with freckles who was around Castiel’s age and one with floppy hair who was younger. Castiel’s brother Michael had made him and his siblings – all of them, even Luke, who was Michael’s twin and essentially took orders from nobody, not even their dad – go over to greet their new neighbours.

Michael was the one to knock on the door and proffer a basket of muffins to a confused Mr. Winchester. Castiel, as the youngest, hid behind Michael as discreetly as he could. Until one of the boys came down the hall and stopped just next to his dad, looking directly at Castiel.

“Hi,” he had said, gaining everyone’s attention even though he was only talking to Castiel. “I’m Dean.”

A pause had passed before Castiel replied. “I’m Castiel.”

Dean had wrinkled his nose. “That’s a weird name,” he said, gaining a stern look from his father and a glare from the ever protective Michael. Castiel, however, hadn’t been offended. He’d just smiled at Dean, and Dean had grinned back. “Do you want to go and play? I don’t know where the park is but it’d be nice if you could show me.”

Castiel had looked to Michael for permission, and when Michael nodded his smile grew even wider. “I’d like that,” had been his answer, and when they’d okayed it with Mr. Winchester, too, the two boys had gone over to the park, chatting easily like it wasn’t their first conversation.

At the park, Dean had found a soccer ball and started to kick it around aimlessly. Castiel, having never been very good at sports, could only watch amazedly.

“I’m going to be a professional soccer player when I’m older,” Dean had proclaimed certainly. His eyes were focused only on the ball as he talked, and Castiel was content to just listen to whatever Dean had to say. “My mom always used to call me her little Beckham. Said I had natural talent.”

Castiel was silent for a moment after that, playing with the grass beneath his fingertips and watching Dean pass the ball from his left foot to his right and then back again.

“Where’s your mom now?” he had asked, and then noticed the way Dean’s face changed at the question, at the way his lips set tighter, his eyes fell sadder.

“She died,” Dean replied simply. “There was a house fire back when we lived in Kansas. I was four and Sam – my kid brother – wasn’t even a year. I carried Sammy out of the house and my dad tried to go back in to save her but –”

He stopped there, eyes blinking fast as though they were holding back tears. Castiel wasn’t sure what to do, so he stood up, walked over to Dean and wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist, pulling him into a hug. He buried his face in Dean’s neck, felt Dean’s hands slowly slip around Castiel’s shoulders.

“What are you doing?” Dean had asked, the words muffled where his lips were against Castiel’s hair.

Castiel shrugged slightly. “You seemed like you needed a hug. I know what it’s like to not have a mom. I never met mine. She died giving birth to me. And my dad’s never really around much, so my brothers, Michael and Luke, mostly look after us.”

And there they had stayed for a long while, wrapped around each other even though they’d only met a few hours ago. Castiel had never really been big on hugs, but there was something about Dean, and the way he smiled and laughed and held back tears, that made Castiel just want to hold him until everything was better.

They’d only gone home when the sky started to get dark and they both realised that they had to be back for dinner, or else Dean’s dad and Castiel’s brother would get worried and mad.

“I like you, Cas,” Dean had said when they were back at the houses and about to part ways.

Castiel had frowned. “Cas?”

“Yeah,” Dean replied, blushing underneath the collar of his sweatshirt. “Castiel’s a bit of a mouthful. Don’t you like the nickname?”

Castiel thought it over for a while, rolling the word around in his brain. “No, I like it,” he settled on, gaining a beam from Dean. “Cas.”

Dean laughed at the reverence in Castiel’s tone. “Awesome, dude,” he said, and then, “I should go in now, before dad gets mad. I’ll see you around, Cas.” Castiel watched Dean walk into his house then, but he called out to him just before he went in, as he was stood on his porch. Dean turned around to look at Castiel. “Yeah?”

“I like you, too,” Castiel admitted, and the smile he got in return was close to blinding.

After that, they became inseparable, an entity not to be considered dividedly, but instead as one person. John liked Castiel, and Michael begrudgingly liked the happiness that Dean brought with him to Castiel. He had always been a bit worried that Castiel didn’t have enough friends, but as close as Dean and Castiel became, it suddenly seemed as though their bond was strong enough that nothing else mattered.

Castiel spent time with Sam, too. Even though he was only four, he was already exceptionally bright, and as the years passed it remained the same: all too clever Sam and all too joined at the hip Cas and Dean.

It was when they reached sixteen that things started to change.

“You know Meg Masters, in our Calculus class?” Dean had mentioned one day when they were in Castiel’s room. Dean was lying on the bed, flicking through some soccer magazine that he had a subscription to, and Castiel was sat at his desk, working on his homework. All in all, it was a usual weekday evening for them.

All except for the topic of conversation. “Yes, I do. Why?”

Dean shifted, uncomfortable. “I, uh. I heard she’s got a crush on you.”

“So?” Castiel asked, genuinely confused as to the relevance. “It should be clear to you that I do not reciprocate the feelings, so why would you bring it up?”

Dean had breathed out a laugh. “I don’t know, to be honest. Just – thought I should tell you. Maybe give you a chance at getting laid.”

Castiel frowned. “I’m not interested in getting ‘laid’, as you say,” he replied, and for some reason Dean’s face had been a mixture of relief and worry. “Well, at least not by Meg Masters. She’s mean.”

“Would you,” Dean said, quick and then he had stopped before he finished his sentence. He had brought his incisors down over his bottom lip, chewing on it. “Would you be interested if it was someone else?”

Castiel had put his pen down and turned to face Dean properly. Dean’s magazine was resting on his chest, lifting up and down with each breath, and Castiel could see the familiar faces of soccer players on its covers, the ones he recognised from watching games with Dean but still couldn’t put a name to, no matter how hard Dean pressed the information into him. He looked nervous, and Castiel had absolutely no idea why.

“Why are you bringing this up, Dean?” Castiel demanded, watching Dean’s eyes close and his lips quirk upwards, just slightly, like they always did when Castiel, apparently, _bypassed normal societal interaction_ in favour of being blunt. “We do not usually discuss our classmates’ infatuations, so why are we talking about it now?”

Castiel had continued to look at Dean, at the rise and fall of his chest, the tinge of red beneath his cheeks, the smattering of freckles across his nose. Eventually, Dean had sat up, hands flexing against his thighs as he sat a while longer. Then, he stood up, crossed the room to Castiel until he was stood right in front of him, in the gap between Castiel’s legs.

“I don’t know how to tell you,” he’d admitted confusingly, and just when Castiel thought he was beginning to understand the closed off enigma that was Dean Winchester, he leaned down and pressed his lips against Castiel’s.

The kiss was chaste, dry, barely even there. But Castiel felt it, deep in his bones, resounding and loud and not as surprising as it should have been. Dean pulled away after only a second, a hand on either side of Castiel’s jaw, thumbs rubbing against the skin there, slow and tentative.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” he admitted, eyes closed like he was savouring the moment, like he thought this would be his only chance.

One of Castiel’s hands came up to his lips, thumb rubbing against the lower one in wonder. Slowly, tentatively, he reached it forward to cup around the juncture where Dean’s shoulder met his neck. It was a signal, acquiescence, an admission of wanting as well. Dean knew it, and opened his eyes to stare at Castiel.

“I didn’t know I was allowed,” Castiel had said, words all a muddle in the face of finally knowing that he could have Dean, all of Dean, even the parts he’d never let himself think about wanting. Dean had smiled, one side quirking up in unadulterated bliss.

“You’re allowed,” he said, and then his smile had got bigger. “Jesus, Cas, you’re allowed.”

He’d kissed Castiel again after that, harder this time, with tongue and teeth and roaming hands. It had migrated to Castiel’s bed, secure in the knowledge that they would not be disturbed because, for once, the entire Novak family weren’t home, and were guaranteed not to be for at least another few hours.

It’d escalated and escalated, Dean laying in the V of Castiel’s legs, hips grinding down as they kissed and licked into each other’s mouths. It’d gotten hotter, and heavier, and eventually Castiel was coming, cock heavy in Dean’s hand while his own hand was wrapped around Dean in the same place. They stuttered out their bliss together, all so new and exciting, and with so much future ahead of them, too.

Afterwards, following them both changing into new pairs of boxers, they’d laid on the bed together, kissing lazily, languorously, with no destination in sight other than the fact that they were doing this now; they were allowed to.

“We can’t,” Dean had said, pulling away from Castiel’s mouth and speaking with a breathy and wrecked voice. “We can’t be public, you know that, right?”

Castiel thought for a second, and then nodded in agreement. Of course they couldn’t; this was a small town in Louisiana, and as much as they were good people here, there were enough bad ones that it cancelled out any kind of acceptance.

And so passed the next two years, them keeping their relationship to locked bedrooms or the backseat of the Impala; John’s beloved car that he had gifted entirely to Dean on his sixteenth birthday, saying he clearly already loved this car more than John ever could. It was hard; sneaking around, keeping up the pretence of just being best friends and not telling anybody that they were together.

But it was definitely worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of the flashback will be up on Monday :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: homophobia/homophobic language

What made it easier was Sam knowing. The thing is, they didn’t even tell him. He was so smart, so observant, that one day when he was thirteen he just cornered Castiel and Dean and demanded it of them.

“Are you two together?” he had asked, pre-pubescent and really mad at having been lied to for almost a year.

Castiel had stuttered, unsure whether to deny or tell the truth. In the end, it was Dean who answered.

“Yeah, Sammy. We are.” His eyes were hard, like he was daring Sam to object.

Though Sam, of course, didn’t. Instead, he beamed. “Guys, that’s awesome!”

Castiel allowed himself to smile at that, and he saw that Dean did, too. “Yeah, yeah,” Dean had said, laughingly. “No need to be all gay about it, Sammy.”

That earned him a punch on the arm from both Castiel and Sam, and after that everything was great: Sam promised, begrudgingly, not to tell anyone. See, he was an idealist; he liked to see the good in everyone, and didn’t understand why Castiel and Dean had to keep their relationship a secret just so that a few bigots wouldn’t get angry. After Castiel and Dean’s insistence, though, he had agreed to keep quiet, even to John.

“Especially to dad,” as Dean had put it, eyes worried as he thought about his father. He was always nervous about John finding out, about how John would react to the news that his son was gay and in love with the neighbour’s kid. His father was dead-set on Dean becoming a soccer star, as was Dean, to be honest, and homosexuality and sports just do not mix. Castiel knew that John wanted it, not for Dean himself, but because of how Mary had encouraged it so much, before she died; how she had signed Dean up for soccer teams and paid money they didn’t have on boots with the right kind of studs.

Castiel knew it was unhealthy, this link between Dean’s mother and Dean’s soccer aspirations, but because Dean loved the game so much, too, he never let it bother him. Well, he never let it bother him where Dean was concerned, but with John – with John it was almost wrong, the kind of hope he placed in his son’s future to keep him connected to his wife.

Mostly, Castiel could ignore it. Until it became the very reason everything turned to shit.

It was a week after graduation and they were parked in a field somewhere, just lying with one another in the backseat, both tired from Dean fucking Castiel into submission just minutes ago. Neither of them were wearing anything but their boxers, having both put them back on afterwards in order to wipe the cum off of Castiel’s stomach. Castiel’s head was on Dean’s chest, listening to the beat of Dean’s heart against his skin, eyes closed and content as Dean ran a hand through his hair.

They had been celebrating graduation, belatedly, and also the fact that they’d both gotten into their top choice colleges: Dean off to Columbia to study mechanical engineering with a soccer scholarship and Castiel on his way to Harvard to study journalism.

They knew it’d be difficult to maintain their relationship at different colleges, but they were only a few hours away from each other, anyway, and if they could survive two years of sneaking around, they could get through anything.

The night was their first opportunity to be together properly in a week. They’d both been so caught up in their families and preparing for their graduation that there just hadn’t been any time. Castiel had been chosen as Valedictorian, and Dean had teased him mercilessly for it.

“My little nerd,” he had whispered, not for the first time, and there had been a fond smile in his voice.

Castiel allowed himself a quirk of lips before he replied, faux-agitatedly. “Shut up, Winchester.”

Dean laughed, low and breathy and oh so achingly happy. “I love you, Cas,” he had said, earnestness in his voice. He said the words so rarely, not because he was unsure of his feelings, but because he wasn’t raised to be open about himself, to let others in and see him vulnerable.

Castiel blamed John for that, although he never said anything. Dean was too loyal to his family for him to take it as anything other than an insult, and Castiel didn’t want to fight: not now, not when they had such little time left together before college put them miles and miles apart.

“I love you, too,” Castiel replied, because of course he did. He couldn’t remember a time after the age of eight when he wasn’t irrevocably in love with Dean Winchester, and he couldn’t think of any time in the future where he wouldn’t be, either.

And that was it, no more talking. They just lay with each other, and Castiel pressed absent kisses to Dean’s chest, and Dean’s fingers scratched lovingly in Castiel’s hair. This was practised for them, known: it was their entire relationship surmised, because they were out somewhere no one would find them, but so in love that it didn’t matter one little bit.

But that’s when everything started to matter a whole fucking lot.

There was a bang on the window, hard and angry and startling. Dean and Castiel had sat up, frantically shoved their clothes back on while they had no idea who the fuck was outside. They only got as far as Castiel in a pair of pants but still shirtless and Dean wearing unbuttoned jeans and his leather jacket over nothing before the door was yanked open.

“Dean Winchester, get your goddamn fucking ass out here right now!” John had yelled, and Dean’s face had gone pale as his movements halted. There was the sound of frantic pleading from outside, too, and Castiel vaguely realised that it was Sam who was begging for his father to stop, but he was too focused on Dean to be too aware.

“Dean,” Castiel had said, wrapping a hand around Dean’s wrist. Dean didn’t look at him, he was just staring into the blackness that awaited them outside. Castiel knew that what would come next would be ugly, that it could – and probably would – change everything, so he started pleading. “Dean, please, just – just remember that I love you, ok?”

Dean hadn’t nodded nor shook his head. He hadn’t done anything except breath in, shallow and slow, and then climbed out of the car. Castiel followed closely after him. How could he not?

Upon leaving the car, Castiel saw John stood before them, face angry and red and his hands at fists by his sides. Sam was stood beside him, twitching nervously while his eyes flicked between Dean and Castiel guiltily.

“I’m so sorry, guys,” he said, looking as if he might cry. “He demanded and I – I couldn’t – couldn’t.”

He couldn’t even finish his sentence, and Castiel could see the genuine guilt in his eyes and in the set of his features. “It’s ok, Sam,” Castiel told him, because it wasn’t Sam’s fault, not one little bit. It was John – all John – and Castiel didn’t want Sam feeling even a little bit bad. “It’s not your fault.”

John gritted his teeth so hard it was almost audible. “No,” he said, quiet and warning and terrifyingly angry. “It’s your fault, Novak. It’s you that corrupted my son, with your faggot lifestyle. You’re the one that’s been polluting him right under my fucking nose. I welcomed you into my home, and this, _this_ , is how you repay me?”

And Dean? He didn’t say a word in Castiel’s defence.

Sam did, though. “How can you say that, dad?” he shouted, turning on John angrily. “You know Dean’s been happier ever since we moved here, and you know that’s all down to Cas!”

“Stay out of this, Sammy,” John growled, glowering at Castiel.

Castiel met his gaze coolly. He was willing to fight for this; for Dean. “I am in love with your son, Mr. Winchester,” he said, calm and collected in the face of John’s vehement disgust. “And he loves me, too.”

John had scoffed. “Bullshit,” he spat, and had advanced on Castiel, making him take a step backwards, his back pressed hard against the car. “You’ve made him think he’s in love with you, but he’s not. My boy would never be a – be a – a fucking _queer_.”

“Dad, stop!” Sam had shouted. Castiel blinked and took Dean’s continued silence for what it was: subservience to his father, loyalty to a broken family unit instead of to his own happiness, to what he actually wanted himself.

John had turned on Dean, then, rounding in on his son and staring hatefully at him, instead. “How could you, Dean?” he had asked, like he couldn’t believe his son would fall in love with anyone other than the perfect little homemaker. Someone like Mary. “After everything we’ve done to get you where you are now – to get you with your soccer scholarship, to get you _going_ somewhere with your soccer career. What, are you just going to throw it all away for the neighbour’s kid? Throw your entire future away by choosing to be queer?”

There was silence when he finished speaking, the sound ringing around the quiet outside and sinking into Castiel’s skin like ruin. Sam had just stared at Dean, willing him to say something, anything. To tell his dad to fuck off, to tell him that he loved Cas and that he was going to be with him, forever.

To tell him all the things he’d been telling Castiel for the past two years of their relationship.

Except he didn’t, and Castiel couldn’t even find it in himself to be surprised. “No, sir,” Dean had said, quiet but intent, not looking at Castiel. “I’m not throwing anything away. I’ve worked hard for this. You’ve spent a lot of money on getting me here. I – I want the career.”

He didn’t have to say the words _and not Cas_ , because they went implied.

Some of the tension left John’s shoulders. “Good,” he had murmured. “Good boy. Now – now come on. Come home.”

Dean nodded, his hands twitching at his sides, and then he turned, walked straight past Castiel without even looking at him, and got into his car. John looked at Castiel then, smug and vitreous in his victory, before walking back to his own Mustang and climbing in.

Sam was the only one remaining with Castiel then. Castiel was stood, bare chested, his sweater still being in Dean’s car, with Sam just looking at him, eyes sad and guilty.

“Cas, I –  I am so sorry,” he said.

A hysterical burst of laughter bubbled out of Castiel, short and sharp. “It’s not your fault, Sam,” he replied.

“I’ll talk to Dean, ok? Dad, too. I’ll – I’ll make them be reasonable.” Castiel nodded absently, not believing a word Sam said. “He loves you, Cas. He can’t let you go.”

 _No_ , Castiel had thought.  _He can. Because his loyalty to his father and his dead mother outweighs any kind of love he could have for me._ But he didn’t say anything, just left Sam to climb into Dean’s car. And then they all drove off, leaving Castiel stood in an empty field at night, having lost Dean and his entire future, really, at the drop of a hat.

He had sunk to the floor, then, and only come back out of his daze when his phone had rung. The time said 1:30am and the name flashing on his screen was Michael’s. Putting the phone to his ear, he heard Michael’s voice, frantic and worried.

“Castiel?” he had asked, and Castiel had made a small noise in recognition. “Where the fuck are you? We’re so worried! Are you – are you ok? I went over to the Winchester place to ask but all that asshole father did was shut the door in my face. Has something happened?”

And Castiel couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t tell his own big brother that he’d had his heart ripped out that night by their neighbour, by Castiel’s best friend. Because Dean had a career, and he’d made a choice, and Castiel was going to respect that with his secrecy.

So, instead, he’d just said, “Will you come pick me up? Please?” and given Michael a location, been taken back to his home and put in bed, passive all the way to Michael’s worried mutterings. The next day he’d packed his things and spent the rest of the summer before college with his cousin Gabriel in California so that he never had to see Dean again, to see what he lost, to see what could have been.

And it had worked. Right up until now.


	5. Chapter 5

Castiel spends the rest of the day in his apartment, studiously ignoring every phone call from Balthazar that comes through and feeling entirely numb. Seeing Dean brought back so many memories: of being young and finally having a friend, falling in love with the boy that knows you better than anyone else.

But also, and most poignantly, of losing it all. Being left, broken and alone and knowing, _knowing_ , that the person you love above all others doesn’t love you the same. Dean had chosen soccer, and his father’s desperate desire for Dean to keep him connected to what his wife had once playfully wished for her child. Dean had left Castiel to take the life of a sports star, one with expensive jewellery and big houses and beautiful women.

As much as Castiel had tried not to, he’d kept up with Dean’s burgeoning career over the past seven years. Even when living in Massachusetts for college, he’d bought newspapers that specialised in sports, pretending that he was doing it merely for the world news, and scoured them for signs of Dean up and coming. When Castiel was around twenty, Dean’s name began to feature heavily in the sports section.

Studying at Columbia, he had been quickly noticed by the New York Red Bulls and put into their youth squad. From there, he’d begun playing regular games for their second string team, being by far and beyond their best striker, and even probably their best overall player, among the young ones. Newspapers covered his games because his skill was so basic and pure – so Dutch, apparently, although Castiel never really understood that reference – that they knew he was, one day, going to be something huge.

As it turned out; that did happen. He became a regular in the first team at the age of twenty-one, after graduating with a 3.5 GPA, and from there on things just got better and better for him. He became one of the countries’ most prolific stars, showing skill and passion and dedication in every game. Every movement, even.

Castiel knew from history that Dean lived and breathed soccer, that soccer was in his entire _life_ , and so as much as Castiel wanted to hate him and begrudge him his success he just – couldn’t. He was happy for Dean, stupidly, because a part of him (that he resolutely never acknowledged) still loved Dean, the awkward teenager who couldn’t think of the words to ask for a kiss.

The New York Post offered Castiel a job after he finished his degree – also with a 3.5 – and he took it willingly, deciding that New York was a big enough place that he’d never have to run into Dean. Plus, he was going to be a lowly reporter, poor in comparison to Dean’s exuberant wealth and luxurious lifestyle.

Except he did end up running into Dean. He ended up having to write a goddamn article on the guy, having to spend two weeks with him intensively. Before he’d convinced himself that he could do this, that he _needed_ to do this, that Dean was the ASL star who captured the collective American heart with his easy smiles and shining eyes, and so if he wrote this article he’d finally be noticed, recognised, appreciated. But now he’s not sure he can do it.

Taking a deep breath, he picks up his cell phone from his bedside table and dials the number that connects to Mr. Adler’s office line. It rings a few times before the boss picks up.

“Zachariah Adler speaking,” he greets, distracted and aloof. Castiel inhales again before he replies.

“Mr. Adler? It’s Castiel. Novak. I – I’m not sure I can pursue the project that you’ve given me. The one on De – um, Mr. Winchester. I think that it’d be best if you were to give it to someone else.”

He finishes and there’s silence. He closes his eyes and waits, prays that his boss will just listen to him and not make him do this article.

Except he doesn’t, because he is, as previously mentioned, an asshole. “No can do, I’m afraid, Mr. Novak. You have been decided as this piece’s writer and – if I’m not mistaken – you have already signed the necessary contracts that tie you to it. There’s no getting out of this one, son.”

“Please,” Castiel begs, not above it if it means that he can just make his boss _see_. “I don’t even know anything about soccer, I’d be useless. Worse than useless, even. It’d be an awful article and –”

Mr. Adler cuts him off prematurely. “No, Mr. Novak,” he declares, finality and absoluteness in his tone. “You are going to write this piece, and you are damn well going to put your best into it, capiche?”

Castiel swallows. “Yes, sir. Sorry.”

“Good,” Mr. Adler says. “Are we done?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll report back to you at the end of the week with my progress.”

“Excellent. Don’t let me down.”

And then the phone clicks silent, and Castiel knows that his only option is to put his everything into the article and pray to God that its consequences outweigh everything he’s going to have to suffer through in the next couple of weeks.

Next, he locates his bag from where it had been dumped in the living room, dropped carelessly in Castiel’s futile haste to curl in on himself somewhere warm and comfortable and just try to forget. He opens it, takes out the notes he’d made earlier on his upcoming schedule and looks over it, properly, for the first time.

He sees that he’s expected tomorrow at Dean’s house, promptly, at 9am. Castiel schools his mind not to shudder at the thought of being in Dean’s house and then continues to look over the rest of the schedule. It’s mostly the same kind of thing: meeting with Dean somewhere, staying around for as long as necessary or appropriate for the article, and basically just tagging along wherever Dean chooses to go, being a hang on that will (hopefully, in all honesty) be ignored.

It’s when his eyes flick to the top left corner of one of the sheets of paper – one of the legal documents that Dean’s PA had given him – that he sees a number and a message.

_Don’t let me down on that catch up_ , it says in Sam’s familiar messy handwriting, which really hasn’t changed since he was fourteen. It’s followed by a number, and before Castiel can even totally comprehend that he’s doing it, he’s punching the numbers into the cell phone and saving it, knowing that he will definitely call Sam sometime. It’ll be nice.

Castiel then stands up, brushes off any sense of personal past, and begins to create a plan for his time. He thinks about the kinds of questions he will ask, the kind of angle he will take with the article, and in the end he has a vague idea of how this will pan out, even if he is not directly linking his thoughts with the idea of Dean.

He goes to sleep early, prepared for the next day in his professional mind, if not necessarily in his actual self.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is kinda short, but the next one is when all the shit really begins, so they'll start getting longer from now on :)


	6. Chapter 6

Castiel is sat in his car just outside a pretty damn huge house. It’s all white walls and pillars, and Castiel had no idea that places like this even _existed_ in New York. It’s in the middle of nowhere, far, far away from any of the busyness of the city, and there is a high wall circling it, blocking out fans and paparazzi alike, probably.

The window of Castiel’s Toyota is rolled down and he extends his arm to press at the button of a small, silver box. It crackles noisily as he holds it down and when he pulls away there’s a small silence before a voice emanates from it.

“Hello?” it asks, and it’s the sound of a woman’s voice, bright and cheerful and happy. Something clenches painfully at the thought of a woman inside of Dean’s house, answering his door and greeting his visitors. He tries his hardest not to hate this nameless, faceless woman, but the jealousy in his spine is burning and he can’t get it to stop.

He coughs, calming himself. “Um, hello. I’m here to see Mr. Winchester? We have an appointment. I’m the reporter.”

“Oh!” the voice in the box exclaims, sounding weirdly happy. “Yeah, of course. Gimme a sec and I’ll let you in.”

The line goes silent again after that, followed by a prolonged buzzing noise and then the gates slowly opening, allowing Castiel to pass through. He parks his car on the huge drive which is sans anything but greenery and gravel and gets out, walks over to the door and presses the doorbell, nervousness filtering through his body even as he pleads for his hands not to shake.

After a few seconds the door is yanked open to reveal a pretty young girl, no older than twenty-one, with curly, blond hair and wide smiling eyes. Castiel can’t help but hate her.

“Hi!” she greets enthusiastically, stepping aside to allow Castiel to enter the hallway. Inside, he sees that it’s just as extravagant as he’d expected: expensive looking paintings and decorations, minimalist designs and just so _not_ Dean. Or, at least, not the Dean that Castiel knew, anyway. Castiel is shaken out of his subtle inspection by the girl addressing him again. “You must be Cas.”

Castiel frowns. “It’s Castiel.”

The girl’s face falls slightly. “Oh, um, sorry. Castiel.”

“It’s fine,” Castiel replies, because he didn’t want to offend her. In fact, he feels kind of sorry for her: she’s clearly in a relationship with a man who is so far in the closet he’s almost in Narnia, and yet she is so blissfully happen that Castiel can only assume that she is entirely unaware.

She smiles, and Castiel can’t help but smile back. She’s endearing, and even Castiel can admit that through his jealousy.

“I’m not that sure where Dean is, to be honest,” she tells Castiel, gesticulating wildly and beginning to ramble. “I mean, I know he’s here somewhere, but it’s such a big house, isn’t it? Almost a mansion, really! So, he’s here somewhere. Maybe I should call him, but that seems kinda ridiculous, right? Calling someone from within the same house of them?”

Castiel cuts her off before she talks herself out of breath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

She flushes. “Oh,” she breathes, smiling and looking down at her feet. “I’m sorry. I tend to ramble. You just need to tell me to shut up sometimes. I’m Jess, though. Nice to meet you.”

“Jess?” Castiel reiterates, wondering at its familiarity before it registers properly in his brain. “Oh. _Jess_. As in Sam’s girlfriend?

She positively beams. “Yeah, that’s me. How’d you know that? Has Sam been talking about me?”

“Yes,” Castiel admits, watching her face light up even brighter. “He told me that you go to Stanford with him. He also told me that you’re out of his league.”

“Well,” she replies, blushing up to the tips of her ears. “I’m not sure about the last part, but yeah, I go to Stanford with him.” There’s silence after that, Jess’ face bursting with love and happiness as she talks about Sam, and it’s after a while that she coughs and speaks again. “So you’re here for Dean?”

Castiel nods, his stomach falling slightly at the thought of why he’s really here. Jess nods, too, taking her cell out of her jeans pocket and pressing numbers before holding it up to her ear. She smiles at Castiel as it rings, and Castiel can hear the dialling in the quietness of the hallway. It’s not long before the call is answered.

“Dean?” Jess asks, and Castiel can hear the faint reply of Dean’s low, gruff voice. She continues after the recognition, frowning and looking around herself confusedly. “Where the hell are you? I swear to God, man, you do _not_ need a house this goddamn big.”

Castiel smiles slightly at the disgruntled attitude that he can tell is in Dean’s voice, but the smile abruptly falls away when he hears the sound of boots on tiles from behind him and sees Jess’ eyes widen in detection.

“There you are!” she says, clicking the end call button on her phone and sliding it back into her jeans pocket. She’s looking over Castiel’s shoulder, and Castiel knows that Dean is stood behind him but he can’t make himself turn just yet. “Castiel’s here to see you. About the report?”

“Yeah,” Castiel hears Dean choke out, his voice rough. “Yeah, I can see that, Jess. Thanks. Uh – Sammy’s upstairs, by the way. He said something about wanting to spend the day on Coney Island so you should go talk to him about that.”

Jess smiles at that, although she does look mildly worried. “Yeah, ok. You going to be ok down here?” she asks, looking at both Castiel and Dean. Castiel wonders if maybe she knows, before deciding that no, of course she doesn’t: Dean wouldn’t risk it.

Castiel nods, and Dean must, too, because she gives them one last smile before running up the stairs, her blond curls bouncing behind her. Castiel keeps standing facing away from Dean, his fingers twitching by his sides and his palms sweating.

Eventually, Dean coughs. “You gonna look at me, Cas?”

Castiel takes a breath before spinning on his heel to look at Dean. “It’s Castiel,” he says, staring hard and resolute at Dean, not allowing himself to crumble in sight of the boy – no, man now, _Jesus_ , things have changed – who left him broken all those years ago.

“Right,” Dean mumbles, fingers flexing and feet shifting. Castiel notices that he’s wearing jeans today, with a loose Led Zeppelin t-shirt and boots. Castiel realises that it’s the same shirt he always used to wear when they were teenagers, and suppresses the thought before it blooms painfully in his chest. “So, uh, _Castiel_. You got any idea how to start this?”

Castiel shrugs the bag on his shoulder so that it sits more comfortably. “Yes,” he replies. “Do you have a dining table, or somewhere similar that we could sit and discuss the project?”

The formality in his tone is so alien in relation to Dean, and Dean knows it, if his frown is anything to go by. “Yeah, I. There’s a dining room. Just to your left. We can talk there.”

His sentences are choppy and disjointed, his face a myriad of confusion and subtle hurt. Castiel refuses to talk to Dean as if he knows him, as if they grew up together, matured together. Instead, he’s going to treat this for what it is: a business meeting, something contractual and professional.

Castiel walks into the room that Dean is gesturing to, and is unsurprised to find something equally tidy and extravagant. It’s a theme really: same old Dean, with very new tastes, apparently. Dean takes a seat on one side, and so Castiel takes a seat on the opposite.

He’s not being petty, he’s being professional. There’s a difference.

“Firstly,” Castiel starts, after he’s taken all of the bits of paper out of his bag and spread the across the wooden table, “We should discuss what exactly you want out of this article.”

Dean frowns. “What the hell would I want out of this?”

Castiel represses the urge to roll his eyes. He’s being _professional_. “Well, this article will be in honour of your recent achievements, so would you like it to focus on making you look good enough to gain interest from other clubs? Perhaps to get you offers from the Primeship over in England?”

“It’s the Premiership,” Dean says absently, and Castiel can’t help the flash back to when he used to kiss the correction into Castiel’s skin when they were teenagers, and Dean was exasperatedly trying to teach Castiel the wonders of British soccer. “But no, I don’t want to big myself up. I’m happy where I am, thanks.”

“Ok then,” Castiel says, jotting things down in his notepad. “So you’d like the piece to just be about you? We could make it more about your personal life, if you’d rather. Maybe garner some reality TV possibilities if we make you seem marketable enough. I mean, you’re a young sports star, I can imagine E! doing something with that, or maybe –”

Dean bangs a fist on the table, effectively cutting Castiel off. “Damn it, Cas,” he growls. “How the hell can you think that I’d want to be all over TV? You know I don’t like being in the spotlight. Jesus, why the hell do you think I keep my personal life so private?”

“You agreed to do this interview,” Castiel replies, tone icy as he avoids Dean’s eye. “So you must be reconsidering your stance on living in the public eye at least a little bit.”

Castiel sees Dean’s hands fisting atop the table and hears his heavy breathing. “No,” he grits out. “No, I – I don’t care what the article makes me look like. Just write whatever the hell you want. You’re the journalist, it’s all up to you.”

Castiel nods and writes more into his notepad. When he looks up, Dean is looking at him, face inscrutable, but his eyes piercingly green. “That’s fine. Next, we should –”

“Are we really not going to,” Dean starts, cutting Castiel off in the middle of his sentence. Then he stops, takes a breath, looks Castiel dead in the eye. “Are we really going to pretend like we don’t know each other?”

Castiel is surprised that Dean has just come out and said it. His hand freezes over the paper, the pencil between his fingers being held painfully tight, making his pale skin bloom red in the places it presses in. He counts down from ten inside his head before he responds.

“Yes,” he says, eventually. “We are. This is just a job, ok? Just an article that I need for my career, and we are both going to act professionally and cordially until it is time to part ways. Is that clear, Mr. Winchester?”

Dean visibly flinches at the formal address. “If – if that’s what you want, Cas. Castiel. Sorry.”

Castiel pauses. “Thank you,” he says, eventually.

His cell phone starts ringing in his pocket. He reaches for it and takes it out, sees Balthazar’s name lighting up the screen and rolls his eyes at the photo Balthazar had programmed as his own caller ID: a picture of Balthazar planting a disgustingly wet kiss to Castiel’s cheek at last year’s Christmas party.

“I have to get this,” Castiel tells Dean, and Dean just nods, mouth set in a straight line.

Castiel accepts the call and puts the phone to his ear, immediately having his ears assaulted by Balthazar’s loud voice.

“Cassy!” he proclaims loudly, making Castiel wince. “Where the bloody hell have you been? I thought you’d fallen off the face of the Earth! You haven’t been picking up your phone.”

Dean is staring at Castiel strangely, and Castiel wonders if Dean can hear what Balthazar is saying. He probably can, because Balthazar is obnoxiously loud and the house is so big that where they sit is in silence.

“Sorry,” Castiel replies, training his eyes on the table before him. “I’ve just been busy.”

Balthazar huffs out a laugh. “You’re always busy, you’re a bloody workaholic. Which is why I’ve decided that we are going out tonight and I am going to get you drunk.” Castiel begins his protests, but Balthazar just cuts him off. “No arguments, Cassy. You need this. There’s been a stick up your arse for far too long and we need to get rid. Preferably replace it with a nice cock, actually.”

Castiel splutters and blushes, all too aware of Dean sitting opposite him. “Balthazar!” Castiel admonishes, and is only met with Balthazar’s abrasive laughter. “Fine. Fine! We can go for a drink. Just – I have to go now. I’ll meet you at the usual place at 8, ok?”

“Excellent. I look forward to it. Dress slutty!”

Castiel breathes out a laugh. “Go away, Balthazar. I’ll see you later.” And then he hangs up, still smiling down at his phone. It’s only when Dean coughs that Castiel’s head snaps back up, his current location smashing back into his awareness and wiping the smile off his face.

There’s silence for a few minutes before Dean speaks. “So,” he says, eyes darting side to side, never landing on Castiel’s face for longer than a second. “Balthazar. Is he – is he your boyfriend?”

Castiel frowns. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

Dean shifts, uncomfortable. “No, I – I guess it’s not.” The _anymore_ is left unsaid, but Castiel can feel it anyway, sinking into his skin, tightening and itching and reminding. “That wasn’t a very professional question, was it? Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Castiel replies tightly. “Let’s just talk business now, ok?”

Dean nods, and then they do. It lasts about an hour, a rigid back and forth between them of stunted conversation and a palpable undercurrent of past. It’s like there’s an elephant in the room; big and pink and bearing down on Castiel, making it difficult for him to breathe, making it feel like the walls are closing in on him. Eventually, when Castiel has collated all the necessary introductory information, they are all done and Castiel marks the occasion by putting his papers away and standing up.

“That it?” Dean asks when he does.

Castiel nods. “That’s the preliminaries done, yes,” he answers, avoiding looking at Dean, who is still sat at the table, lounging back in the chair with his legs open wide. _Inviting_ , Castiel thinks before he can stop himself. He shakes the thought of himself internally and finally meets Dean’s gaze. “Unless there was something you’d like to add?”

Dean opens his mouth, and then closes it again. His eyes dart around the room nervously, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and for a second Castiel is terrified that he’s going to say something. Something like _I want you_ or _I miss you_ or _I love you_ , and then Castiel won’t be able to say no. He won’t be able to say no if Dean asks, really, _really_ , asks, because Castiel is so, so weak, and he never should have started doing this in the first place, honestly.

Instead, Dean just coughs. “No, I’m – I’m good.”

Castiel shakes himself out of his thoughts. _A moment of weakness,_ he puts it down to, and hopes to God that it will stay like that.

It’s only few more seconds before all of Castiel’s things are away and he’s at a loose end. He’s not sure what do now: should he stay, and begin the reporting process sooner rather than later, get it over with as soon as possible? Or should he go, allow himself time to think, to _remember_ why he’s staying professional, never looking Dean in the eye too long for fear of falling back into them again?

He must seem fairly strange as he thinks, because when he blinks back into the present he sees Dean looking at him oddly. And – and the look is so familiar, and so forgotten: it’s how Dean would look at Castiel when he chose to study over making out on the couch, when he wanted to watch the new Star Wars instead of the older ones, when they were too young to see that they just wouldn’t work. The look is fond and nostalgic, and Castiel schools his expression to something hard and unreadable because he’s not sure he can stand remembering anymore.

He decides that he has to go, _now_ , or he’ll do something irrevocably stupid. “Well, if that’s all,” he starts, patting himself down and trying to turn his tie the right way around, “I’ll be going now. What are your plans for tomorrow? Is it something that I could possibly accompany you to?”

“Uh, yeah. I’ve got a training session for pretty much the whole morning. It’s to keep me in shape when the season’s not in, so I guess you could come along and ask me questions or whatever in between?”

The thought of Dean in shorts and a t-shirt, smelling of sweat while his clothes stick to him, being close enough for Castiel to touch and not just on the TV. Because, well, sometimes Castiel finds himself on the sports channel, _knowing_ that it’s the night the Red Bulls play but pretending to himself that he doesn’t, and Dean always looks so goddamn gorgeous. The wall between the television and Castiel’s hands has been his saviour over the past seven years, and being up close and personal with sweating Dean? He’s not sure he can handle it.

He has to, though. “Yes, that’s fine. Could you give me an address and a time so that I can meet you there?”

“I could,” Dean answers, standing up and kicking the toe of his boot against the wooden floor. “But it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, so that the press don’t know where to find me. It’d be easier if I could just give you a ride?”

 _No_ , Castiel wants to say. _No, oh God no, because I know you still have the Impala, and I don’t want to have to sit in there again, remembering the last time I told you that I loved you and all you could return was shrugging me off_.

Instead, he says, “Yes, ok.” He agrees because he has to; has to appease the ‘star’, has to make sure he doesn’t treat Dean any differently than how he would any other interviewee he was reporting on. “Do you want me to meet you here first?”

“I could just pick you up from your place?” Dean offers, and he’s biting his bottom lip like he _knows_ this is crossing boundaries.

Castiel knows, too, but he doesn’t say anything. “If you don’t mind,” he replies, formal tone and expression to deter any kind of emotion leaking into his voice. He reels off an address to Dean, who dutifully writes it down, and then everything is completely sorted and Castiel is free to go.

Dean walks him to the door for some reason, and then he unbolts the locks and stands in its frame as Castiel traipses over to his car. He walks over without looking back, not allowing himself to, and he’s got his keys out and is unlocking it with two twists when he hears Dean speak from the doorway.

“ _That’s_ your car?” he asks, incredulous.

Castiel turns around and frowns. “Yes,” he replies icily. “Why?”

“Nothing,” Dean answers, shrugging, sheepish. “I just – it’s a _Toyota,_ man. I always had you down as someone who was better than a damn _Toyota_.”

 _And I always had you down as someone who wouldn’t break my heart_ , is on the tip of Castiel’s tongue, but he doesn’t say it. “It’s an efficient car,” he says, instead, “and it suits my needs.”

Dean holds his palms up in a gesture of placation. “Hey, man, I’m not having a go. It’s nice. Honestly.” There’s the hint of a smirk on his lips, tightening around the corners of his mouth like he’s not sure he’s allowed to tease. Castiel wants to think that he’s not allowed, but somehow his own mouth is curling, too, despite himself.

“Gee, thanks, Winchester,” he replies, and then winces slightly. He doesn’t say things like that to Dean anymore. They’re not the same teenagers now. “I -  I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow. Ten, right?”

Dean’s smile is different this time, no more teasing or mirth. It’s tight like he’s realised Castiel’s thought process, strained like he hates that it has to be this way.

“Yeah, ten. I’ll be waiting outside for you.”

Castiel only allows himself to nod before he slips into his car and drives out of the gates. He resolutely does not look in his rear-view mirror to see if Dean is still standing in the doorway, watching, but there’s an itch in his skin that tells him he is.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean’s car is still black, and still big, and still so disgustingly _obnoxious_ that it makes Castiel’s skin warm against his will as he thinks about how much he always loved this car. Not as much as Dean did, mind, but then again few people on Earth could love an inanimate object as much as Dean loved his car.

It’s parked by kerb, Dean leaning against it casually, dressed in the usual jeans and leather jacket, but also with a baseball cap and pair of dark sunglasses on. Probably in order to avoid any lurking paparazzi, and the thought strikes ironically with Castiel.

“You do realise you’re attempting to stay innocuous to the press, whilst waiting to pick up a journalist in order to be interviewed for a public article?” is how he greets Dean, shutting the door to his apartment building with a _click_ and walking towards Dean.

Dean’s head snaps up when he hears Castiel. “Oh, hey,” he says, a smile breaking out on his face. “Didn’t hear you coming down.”

“I’m sneaky,” Castiel replies easily, and walks round to the passenger side so that he doesn’t have to see the beam on Dean’s face anymore. “Ready to go?”

Dean nods and ducks into the car at the same time Castiel does. He puts the keys into the ignition, turns them clockwise and the car rumbles into life, the stereo still playing the same songs that it always used to. Dean turns the stereo down, just slightly, and Castiel almost tells him not to, because he’s always had a soft spot for AC/DC, even if he’d never usually admit it out loud.

He doesn’t, though. Inappropriate. Unprofessional. Too familiar.

The car pulls onto the quiet street, almost dead on a Thursday mid-morning, when everyone’s either already at work or not bothering for the day. They drive in silence, Dean tapping out the drumbeat to _Thunderstruck_ against the steering wheel and humming under his breath. Castiel is all too aware of Dean sitting next to him, of Dean’s skin being an outreach away, of the backseat holding so many of his teenage memories. It’s the place where he lost his virginity, actually, and he quells the thought almost as soon as it pops into his head.

“So,” Castiel starts, needing to try asinine small talk in order to keep his mind from wandering to the depths that he keeps hidden away under lock and key. “What does a training session usually entail?”

“It’s just basic training exercises,” Dean answers, keeping his eyes fixed on the road so determinedly, that Castiel knows he’s struggling to do it deliberately. “I’ve got a personal trainer, Jo, who usually kicks my ass until I’m working hard enough to keep the flab at bay.”

Castiel nods, willing thoughts of Dean’s bare torso at away. “This personal trainer, is he a friend of yours?”

“She,” Dean corrects, and something unwanted and irrational flames in Castiel’s stomach at the thought of a female trainer. Which is _stupid_ , because clearly it’s a working relationship, and clearly just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean that Dean is fucking her or anything, but it happens anyway. “But, yeah, she’s great. Her mom’s a friend of my dad, actually.”

Castiel just makes a humming noise of assent in reply, not trusting himself not to say something stupid.

It’s not a long drive to get there, but Dean was right: it is confusing, winding roads, and complex side passages that aren’t sign posted at all. They go the rest of the way in silence, not exactly comfortable, but the crackle in the air feels more loaded than awkward, which Castiel thinks is actually worse. They eventually pull into a parking lot down a dark street, right next to a building that looks as though it should be desolate and abandoned, if the broken windows and graffiti on the walls is anything to go by.

“ _This_ is your gym?” Castiel asks before he can stop himself.

Thankfully, Dean just laughs. “Yeah, I know it’s kinda rough looking, but it’s honestly the best place I’ve tried. Don’t worry, I won’t let you get mugged or anything.”

There’s a teasing glint in his eye and a smile on his lips, which Castiel realises he’s returning and promptly controls his expression back to neutral. He gets out of the car and closes the door, scans the building for an entrance and comes up with one on the left. He walks towards it, hears footsteps against gravel from behind him and gathers that Dean is following, and walks through it and into a sparse room, filled only with a litany of exercising equipment.

And, a glance to his right tells him, a young, blonde woman in her 20s. She’s bending over and rummaging around in a duffel bag, wearing tight jogging bottoms and a loose white t-shirt. Castiel objectively sees that she is, of course, gorgeous, and there’s stupid, unwanted jealousy tightening in his chest again that he hates, hates, hates.

“Finally decided to get your lazy ass out of bed then,” she calls over her shoulder, and she clearly does not realise that Dean isn’t in the room yet. She does, however, figure it out when she stands up and spins around, only to find herself looking at someone who is clearly not Dean. “Oh. Um. You’re not Winchester.”

“No,” Castiel replies awkwardly. “He’s just outside.”

She nods, frowning, and opens her mouth to say something, but before she can Dean is coming through the door. There’s a bag on his shoulder that obviously holds his gym stuff and he looks between Castiel and – Jo, right? – as though he’s only just realised that these two people will have to meet.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh, um. Jo meet Cas – I mean, Castiel, sorry. And, you know. Vice versa. He’s writing an article on me about the whole record thing.”

He says the achievement with humility, and Castiel is reminding about why he was ever even drawn to Dean in the first place. Jo nods, but her eyes take on Castiel with a scrutiny that makes him squirm, just slightly.

“Nice to meet you,” Castiel offers.

“Yeah, you too,” she replies, looking as though she’s still trying to figure something out.

Dean coughs. “Right. Well. I better go get changed so we can get started, huh?” And then he’s shuffling away, past Jo with a quick bump to her shoulder and a smile, and into what Castiel presumes is a changing room.

After he’s gone, the large, empty room is silent. Jo continues to just stare at him, eyes hard and examining as Castiel fidgets nervously.  Eventually, she stops and walks over to Castiel, her eyes softer now, as though they’ve found something in looking at Castiel that makes her trust him.

“Castiel, right?” she asks, and he nods. “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but that’s a weird name.”

Castiel laughs. He’s used to it. “No, it’s fine. I was named after an angel, Cassiel. My father was quite religious, so we all got angel names. Mine was by far the most obscure, though.”

Jo smiles indulgently. “Huh,” she says, standing just in front of Castiel now. Looking at her, Castiel can see how pretty she truly is: blond hair, brown eyes, petite frame. But there’s a smile on her face, warmer now, and Castiel can’t find it in himself to be jealous anymore. “Neat. So, how do you know Dean?”

The bluntness of the question makes Castiel choke a little bit on his own breathing. “Wh – what?”

Jo smiles again, and this time her eyes are teasing and knowing. “Oh come on, you expect me to believe you’re just some reporter? Please, I’ve known Winchester a long time; I know he doesn’t do interviews or personal reports or any of that crap, so you must be pretty special.”

“I, um. I –” Castiel mumbles, because what the fuck is he meant to say to that? Dean said yes because he’s getting paid, or he wants recognition, or – whatever! It’s got nothing to do with Castiel himself, and Castiel knows that, despite the fact that the other reasons seem like nothing Castiel could ever even connote to Dean.

He’s saved from having to answer when Dean walks back into the room wearing –

Oh, shit.

He’s wearing navy shorts and grey t-shirt, his calves and arms and neck exposed, all tanned and muscular. Castiel has to actively stop himself from staring by dragging his eyes away and staring at the floor beneath his feet. But not before he’s looked long enough at a now adult Dean, dressed like an athlete, looking like an athlete, in the same goddamn room as Castiel; so close it’d only be a couple of steps and then he’d be able to –

He stops the thought before it gets away from him, and Dean speaks. “Hi,” he says again, looking at Castiel, even though he’d only been in a different room for around five minutes.

“Um,” Castiel responds, intelligently. “Hello.”

Jo rolls her eyes as they continue to stare at each other. “Alright, dumbass, enough of the staring contest, it’s time to get to work on your pudgy ass.”

Dean scowls. “Who you calling pudgy?”

“You,” Jo replies, smirking. Dean smiles in response, and Castiel feels wholly out of place and intruding. “So get your ass over to the weights and maybe you can do a bit better next season. I mean, you’re starting to lag behind, man: all that fat’s bringing you down.”

Castiel laughs without meaning to and Dean scowls, but complies. He stomps over to the exercise machine and sits himself on it, a thigh either side of the contraption. Castiel’s brain goes straight to how it’d feel to sit between those thighs, to lick and nip and bite at them, to tease and inch closer and closer to what’s in between. He has to shake his head of the thoughts, and when he turns to Jo she’s looking at him strangely. Looking at him like she knows.

It makes him feel uncomfortable, and he coughs. “Where should I go?”

“Wherever,” she answers, a knowing glint in her eyes. “Just watch and make yourself, um, _comfortable_.”

Castiel blushes and thanks every deity he can think of that Dean is far enough way that he can’t hear the exchange. Jo goes off then, over to stand by Dean who lays back and wraps his hands around the metal weight above him, and Castiel goes to sit by the wall, back pressed against it as he gets out a pad and paper in order to take notes.

By the time he’s ready – pen poised over paper, pad resting against his thighs – Dean is pushing upwards and downwards with the weights in his hands. Jo is stood over him, motivating with a mixed litany of teasing and encouragements. Dean isn’t replying, obviously, and his breathing is deep and laboured. Castiel looks down at his paper and tries not to notice, which is difficult when you’ve actually come somewhere _to_ look at someone, and _to_ write about what they do.

He begins to jot down notes, about Dean’s friendly demeanour, about how his time is spent in run down gyms with personal trainers who are family friends. He writes about how Dean always seems to act like he’s not famous, like he hasn’t got legions of fans – both sports and female – and he doesn’t earn the most money of anyone in the ASL. He writes with the knowledge in the back of his head of what Dean was like in childhood: abrupt and confrontational if you’re worth not liking, but secretly sweet and considerate if you’re important to him. Castiel recalls one time being cornered by a group of jocks and beaten up for being a nerd when he was a freshman, and how the next time he’d seen the group of them they’d all been covered in cuts and bruises, and so had Dean’s knuckles.

He writes and writes and writes, carried away in his words and his mind. His hand moves furiously across the paper, using up page after page as he details the internal character of the famed Dean Winchester, allowing himself to write all of the things he won’t let himself think, to describe Dean in the way his heartbreak won’t let him do consciously. He’s so wrapped up in his own bubble of prose that he doesn’t notice the time until Dean is stood in front of him, t-shirt sticking to his sweaty skin and his face red and flushed.

“Hi there,” he breathes, smiling and panting and looking too gorgeous for someone who probably smells like a goddamn sewer. “Get much done?”

Castiel lifts his knees slightly, hiding his notes from Dean’s prying eyes. He does it because the thought of Dean seeing what he’d written, seeing all the ways Castiel still thinks about him, can’t stop thinking about him, makes his skin feel uncomfortably tight and his stomach pull downwards towards his feet.

“A bit,” he replies, and Dean’s smile grows wider.

“Awesome. Well, I’m all done here, so I’m gonna go take a shower and then we can move on, yeah?”

Castiel nods mutely, and Dean is satisfied and so stands up and walks towards the same changing room as the one he’d used previously. Castiel watches him go, unconsciously, and is only shaken out of doing so when he realises that there’s someone next to him. He turns his head and sees Jo, standing beside him and leaning against the wall, smiling down at him.

“You’re just a reporter, huh?” she asks, sliding down so that she’s sitting next to him now. Castiel blushes furiously – hating himself for it all the while – and covers his notes as conspicuously as he can with his forearms. He’s not conspicuous at all, however, if Jo’s open laugh is anything to go by. “Oh, honey, don’t bother. I don’t need to read the poetry you’ve written about the green in his eyes to know you’ve got it bad for him.”

Castiel stutters, blushing furiously, feeling it rise up his neck and spread across his cheeks, and it’s almost as good as an admission and he knows it. Jo laughs openly and Castiel wonders if maybe he was wrong earlier; if maybe she’s a horrible person and he should hate her. Except, well; there’s not actual _malice_ in her laughter, more just a sort of fond teasing.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Castiel eventually responds, steadfastly keeping his eyes on his own hands.

She just smiles at him disbelievingly. “You know I ain’t buying that,” she says, nudging against his ribs with one of her elbows. She smiles like it’s ok, like the fact that she seems to think that Castiel has some kind of crush on straight as an arrow athlete Dean Winchester is totally fine and not the slightest bit scandalous. “Don’t worry about it, dude. He’s been looking at you, too.”

The way she says it implies that she doesn’t know about their history. Of course she doesn’t, though; the point of them breaking up was so that no one would ever know, so that Dean continue with his untarnished reputation as the perfect sport star. Yet, here she is; observant enough to notice something about Dean that he has been raised to hide, something that he’s spent his entire career suppressing in order to keep himself above the water of bigoted sports.

“It doesn’t matter,” Castiel mutters, glancing over to see Jo’s smile fade. “He’s Dean Winchester and you – you don’t know the half of it.”

She shrugs. “Maybe not. But I know Dean. I know that the only girlfriend I’ve ever seen him to have was that Lisa Braeden girl, and I also know that they broke up because she didn’t think he felt the same way about her as she did about him. I remember when it happened I had no idea why, because, well, she’s gorgeous and she was clearly totally in love with Dean. But he – he never seemed like he felt the same, I guess, thinking back. So one day it hit me that – that maybe he’d met the perfect girl, but that’s not what he’s interested in, so it was never going to work.”

Castiel inhales sharply, and Jo looks sad, like she knows she’s right. “Have you ever told him that?” he asks, and she shakes her head.

“Course not. He’s so far in denial I think if I told him I’d figured it out he’d have an aneurysm.” Castiel laughs even though the situation’s not funny, and Jo breathes out a laugh, too. “But, uh. I think that maybe you – you could help him. Really help. He just – he looks at you differently. I don’t know exactly, but I’ve been around Dean when Dean’s been around a _lot_ of women, and I’ve never even once seen him look at them the way he looks at you.”

She finishes and Castiel finally lets himself breathe. It all leaves on a long exhale, and his eyes close as he does. Behind his eyes he sees Dean’s smile, the one where he’s eighteen and young and beautiful, and the one where he’s twenty-five, still young and still beautiful, but sadder, somehow, too.

He’s about to reply when Dean waltzes back outside, hair damp and back in his jeans and baseball cap. He looks down at where Jo and Castiel are sat side by side against the wall, and his eyes narrow, confused.

“What are you two talking about?” he asks suspiciously, and Castiel is about to reply with _nothing_ , because he’s really, really bad at lying, when Jo gets in there first.

“Your fat ass,” she replies, standing up and smiling again, cheekily. “And how you didn’t work anywhere near hard enough today and how you’re going to make up for that next time I see you.”

Dean groans. “Dammnit Jo, you cannot be serious! I ache all over, for crying out loud. How the hell am I meant to work harder than that?”

“I’ll find a way,” she counters, smirking. Dean groans again, louder, but he’s smiling now too. His eyes flicker down to Castiel, who is still sat against the wall and staring at Dean, and Castiel hurries to pack his things away and stand up. “Where you guys going now, then?”

Castiel looks to Dean for an answer. Dean looks sheepish. “Well I’m kinda hungry and it’s lunchtime so I was thinking we could go to eat?”

He waits for Castiel to answer, and Castiel waits for the sense of foreboding to kick in and tell him that he should _not_ go to lunch with Dean. That that’s too much like a couple, not enough like interviewer and interviewee. Except, it never happens, and so he finds himself agreeing.

“Yeah,” he breathes, smiling at Dean. “Yeah, ok.”

Dean smiles back, blindingly, and Castiel flushes slightly under its intensity. Dean says his goodbyes to Jo with a peck on the cheek and then he’s smiling at Castiel and walking past him and out of the door. Castiel lingers slightly, looking at Jo and wanting to say all of these things – too many things, really, to tell to a relative stranger – but she beats him to it.

“Help him,” she says simply. “Please.”

Castiel can’t answer, and so he stays rooted to the spot until Dean’s head pokes back inside the room.

“You coming?” Dean asks.

“Of course,” Castiel answers.

Apparently, it’s that simple, because Dean’s smile is happier already.


	8. Chapter 8

They get back into the Impala after that, and Dean smells faintly of fresh sweat and soap from where Castiel sits beside him in the car. The stereo still favours Robert Plant as they wind down streets, and Castiel is expecting to be taken somewhere upper class, fancy; somewhere that Dean can act like the star that he is, be treated the way everyone would expect him to.

His expectations are smashed, however, when ten minutes later they pull into a parking lot beside a small diner. Castiel blinks in surprise as Dean just turns off the car and steps out, like it’s totally normal for a millionaire to choose to eat somewhere that looks as though it comes with a health warning. Castiel follows belatedly, and when he’s outside he can smell grease and fat in the air.

“ _This_ is where we’re eating lunch?” he asks, feeling a faint sense of déjà vu at his incredulity in the face of Dean’s choice. He realises that everything he’d been writing earlier is truer than even he thought, because all Dean does is turn to him and smile.

“Yeah,” he answers, looking at Castiel who is still stood by the car. “I know it’s kinda small and looks kinda dirty, but they make the best cheeseburgers I’ve ever eaten. And – and I remember that you like cheeseburgers, right?”

Castiel’s stomach pulls like a tug of war. “Um, yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“No problem,” Dean responds beatifically, and then he indicates for Castiel to follow him inside with a twitch of his head.

He starts walking, and Castiel hastens to catch up, which he does, just as they walk through the door together. Inside is like every diner you’d ever usually see; a jukebox, gaudy booths to sit in, the kind of throwback to the 1950s that no one has ever seemed to want to get rid of. It’s fairly empty, save a few lone people eating heart attacks on plates and the staff, and Dean looks around as if he’s trying to find someone.

That someone seems to be the waitress who comes out of the swinging door of what Castiel assumes is the kitchen, because when she lays eyes on Dean she grins, wide and welcoming.

“Dean Winchester,” she greets with an accent. “And where the hell have you been?”

Dean ducks his head. “Sorry, Missouri. Coach has been laying into me for the unhealthy diet, so I’ve had to give your delicious food a miss for a while.”

Castiel notices the familiarity between them, Dean’s friendly disposition and the way Missouri – apparently – speaks to him as though he’s anyone else. He decides that maybe it’s good that this is still who Dean is, and then bites his own lip, because he should _not_ be thinking about what’s good for Dean. He feels nothing for Dean. Nothing at all. He doesn’t care even a little bit if fame has shoved Dean’s head so far up his own ass he can taste his heartbeat, because he means nothing to Castiel either way.

Missouri turns to Castiel then, smiling at him, too. “I’m Missouri. Please tell me you’re not one of Winchester’s soccer friends and that you’ll actually allow yourself to eat something damn tasty, if I do say so myself.”

“I’m Castiel,” he replies, and then looks down at his suit and tie, at his scrawny frame, and looks back up with an eyebrow raised. “Do I look the sporting type to you?”

Missouri snorts. “Guess not, hon. Good thing, too. Just sit wherever you want boys, someone’ll be over to take your order in a few.”

She leaves with a smile and Dean nods, moving to a booth on their left. He slides in on one side, so Castiel slides in on the other, and it’s so small that sometimes their knees brush against each other and Castiel has to shuffle as far back into the leather as he can to stop it happening so frequently. He’s not sure if Dean notices this, but he is aware that Dean is trying in no way to stop it himself. Dean’s fingers tap a rhythm on the tabletop and he is looking out on the diner, eyes scouring and surveying. Castiel coughs before he speaks.

“Come here often then?” he asks, and then winces because it sounds like a fucking _line_.

Dean breathes out a laugh like he’s noticed, but thankfully doesn’t comment. “Yeah, been coming here since when I was in college,” he replies. “The guy I shared a dorm with – Andy – told me that the burgers would blow my mind and, well, I guess he was right. Been hooked ever since, even if it does mean I have to do more work in the gym to pass it off.”

“Well, you look good anyway,” Castiel says, and _fuck_ , what the fuck is wrong with him today? It’s like his brain is in mutiny with his heart and it’s choosing to say whatever it damn well pleases. “I mean you look, uh, in good shape. Fit. Healthy.”

Dean’s eyes flicker downwards and then back up to Castiel’s eyes. “Thanks. You – You look good, too.”

Castiel tries his hardest not to blush, but it’s pretty much a losing battle. “Yeah, well, puberty wasn’t exactly my friend,” he replies, and Dean tilts his head just slightly, his eyes narrowing and his mouth pursing around words he clearly doesn’t know whether to say or not.

“I always thought you looked good,” he says, apparently deciding to say it anyway.

Castiel feels something, burning in his spine, telling him to fuck everything and reach out, twine his fingers through Dean’s the way they used to. Used to when no one was around, he thinks next, and suddenly the memory of that night is flashing in his mind, and he notices that his hand is edging forward without his volition, and so he yanks it backwards and into his lap.

“I didn’t expect you to frequent places like this,” Castiel announces, ignoring Dean’s inappropriate statement. He refuses to give it credence by acknowledging it, refuses to bask in it the way he wants to so much.

Dean shifts in his seat and one side of his mouth tugs up, but it’s more self-deprecating than really happy. “I’ve never really been one for fancy food, to be honest. I mean, I know I’ve got the big ass house and everything, but that’s more because people kind of told me that I may as well enjoy the money I’m making. But for me? I don’t think any of it matters, really. I mean, as long as I’ve got my car and Sammy, I’m happy.”

Dean finishes, looking straight at Castiel, looking at him like he’s willing him to understand, to believe that Dean’s still the same as he was when he was eighteen, that fame hasn’t changed him.

And, the thing is, Castiel does believe that. He knows that Dean doesn’t treat fame like his right, that the money is only good to him if he can use it for others – for example, how he paid Sam’s way through Stanford, even though Castiel knows that Sam was offered a full ride – and that Dean clearly still wants small town diner over fancy big town restaurant.

But he also knows that if he lets himself fall in love again, it’ll end exactly the same way, _because_ Dean Winchester is still the same.

“Right,” Castiel says after a while, coughing. The hope that was in the irises of Dean’s eyes fades at Castiel’s dismissal, but if self preservation comes at the price of not being able to look into Dean’s eyes, wide and bright, then he’ll have to suffer those consequences.

The waitress comes then, a new one who isn’t Missouri, and Dean orders himself a bacon cheeseburger and a black coffee, and Castiel orders a cheeseburger and a tea. Dean smirks at him after the waitress is gone.

“Still drinking the tea like a Brit then, I see,” he teases.

“Still drinking black coffee like a caffeinated heathen then, I see,” Castiel teases right back. He realises that was dangerously close to flirting, and so follows it up with, “So, your brother. He could be a principle part of the article, if you want, seeing as he is obviously very dear to you.”

Dean frowns. “I’m not sure how I feel about my brother in the spotlight.”

Castiel blushes. “Oh, sorry, of course not. It’s just – well, he’s your best friend and a big part of who you are, so I thought maybe that was something we could focus on.”

“I guess,” Dean acquiesces, his frown alleviating slightly. “I’d have to talk to him first, though. Little bitch’ll probably piss himself worried about being even vaguely famous, you know how he is.”

_Yes,_ Castiel thinks. _I do. And sometimes I miss him almost as much as I miss you._

“Very well,” Castiel says instead, because he’s not going to admit something like that out loud, and especially not to Dean. “How about we discuss your career in the meantime, then.”

Dean smirks. “You think you know enough about soccer to do that?” he asks, eyebrow raised dubiously.

Castiel huffs. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been working on my theoretical knowledge.”

“Go on then,” Dean bates, leaning forwards with his forearms on the table and smiling. “Explain the offside rule to me.”

_Shit,_ Castiel thinks. _I never could get the hang of that one_. His worry must show on his face because then Dean is laughing at him, loud and bright and booming. And Castiel can’t even find it in himself to be annoyed at this, because it was such a massive part of their relationship at teenagers – Castiel not understanding sports, Dean constantly trying to explain the beauty of them – that it’s just kind of nice.

“Ask me something else,” Castiel requests, scowling.

“Fine then,” Dean replies, a playfully malevolent glint in his eye. “How about we discuss the Premiership – or Primeship, I guess, if you still insist on calling it that – and how it’s such a big influence on my style.”

Castiel scowls harder. “Premier and Prime are very easy to get mixed up,” he argues, and Dean just laughs again.

“If you say so, buddy,” he relents, but the glint in his eye is still there. And Castiel – Castiel likes it. He feels something crumbling inside, something like his willpower or his self preservation. Something that he’d had mere moments ago and is now gone, leaving him open and bare and grinning back at Dean like he has no sense of propriety.

Which is why they spend the rest of their time just – talking. With no sense of reason, no remembrance of the article. So they discuss everything: films they love, films they hate, why Vonnegut is a fucking genius, thank you very much. It’s meaningless to Castiel’s goal, because barely anything that’s been said would be interesting to an outside audience if he were to write it down, and also because he hasn’t actually taken any notes the entire time. They eat their food when it comes, hot and deliciously greasy, and Castiel does have to admit that it is the best burger he’s ever eaten in his life.

He says as much to Dean, and Dean just smiles in satisfaction, like he was the one who cooked it, and not Missouri. They spend so long there that eventually it bleeds from lunchtime into late afternoon without them noticing, and when Dean looks down at his watch he mutters _shit_ and looks up apologetically at Castiel.

“I gotta run now, man. Promised Sammy and Jess I’d take them out for dinner tonight.”

Castiel nods understandingly and then they leave, Dean paying for both of their meals despite Castiel’s arguments. They smile their goodbyes to Missouri on their way out and climb back into the Impala, chatting all the way back to Castiel’s place. Dean pulls up by the kerb outside and there’s a momentary lull in silence where Dean looks down at the hands in his lap and Castiel looks at Dean’s profile.

It hits him suddenly that what they’ve just done was basically a date – more so than anything else he’s done in years, preferring one night stands to any kind of relationship that could get him hurt again – and right now is the moment where the clichés would happen. Where they’d kiss chastely over the steering wheel or Castiel would ask Dean inside for coffee. Dean looks as though he’s going to speak, and Castiel is terrified that Dean might _ask_ , and he won’t be able to say no, so he just mutters his goodbye and says something about being at Dean’s early tomorrow to sort out plans and then he clambers out and walks straight into his building without looking back.

He gets into his apartment and drops his bag, loosens his tie and shrugs out of his jacket and hangs it up by his door. He thinks of the day, of the gym and of lunch, and realises that they acted like a goddamn couple and Castiel didn’t do anywhere near enough to stop it. And the worse thing about it is that he can’t even hate himself too much for it, because the butterflies erupting in his stomach are too happy for their own good.


	9. Chapter 9

Turning up at Dean’s house the next day goes similar as it had done the first time: he pulls up in front of the gate, rolls his car window down and gets buzzed in. Except, this time, it’s not Jess, and it’s not Dean either; it’s Sam. Castiel parks in the same place and when he gets to the door it’s already open and Sam is looming in the doorway, so much taller than Castiel remembers him being at fourteen.

“Hey, Cas,” he greets, smiling and stepping aside to let Castiel in.

“Hello, Sam,” Castiel says back, deciding not to comment on how no one calls him Cas anymore. He absently starts looking around the hallway for signs of Dean so they can get started for the day. “Where is your brother?”

Sam ducks his head and bites on his bottom lip. “He got called into the club today to sign some papers, he won’t be back for a really long time.”

Castiel frowns. “Why didn’t he tell me before I drove all the way here?” he asks, feeling annoyance flare in his stomach. Was Dean just messing with him? Because all it would have taken was a simple phone call and Castiel could have spent his morning more productively, instead of having to traipse all the way to Dean’s ridiculous time and have his time wasted.

“I asked him not to,” Sam answers, and Castiel was not expecting that.

“What?” he asks, still trying to understand why Sam would want to waste his time.

Sam breathes out a nervous laugh. “I asked him not to. When he said this morning that he had to go out, he was just about to call you and tell you about it and I asked him not to, because I thought it’d be nice if you could come over anyway and we could, I don’t know, talk?”

Castiel blinks. “Oh,” he breathes, hating himself a little for jumping to the wrong conclusions. Sam still looks anxious, his hands wringing and his eyes faintly pleading as he looks at Castiel. “Yes, I suppose – I suppose we could talk.”

“Great,” Sam replies, breaking out in a grin. “Jess is out for the day, too. She said she wanted to go shopping and all I ever do is weigh her down with my moaning. So it’s just us, I guess.”

Castiel feels a vague sense of apprehension settling in his stomach even as he smiles and is led through to the kitchen. He takes a seat at the kitchen table and allows Sam to make small talk for the both of them; talking about how fantastic New York is, how Jess really loves it here, how staying with his brother is so much better than staying at some overpriced hotel. Sam offers him a drink and he smiles and says he’ll have whatever Sam’s having, and after Sam sets a cup of coffee in front of him, he sits beside Castiel.

“So,” Sam starts, his bottom lip back in between his incisors. “How’ve you been?”

Castiel takes a sip of his hot coffee. “Fine,” he answers blandly, and then because he wants to switch the focus as soon as possible he adds on, “and yourself?”

Sam looks at Castiel as though he understands exactly what Castiel is doing. His fingers twitch around his cup of coffee, his posture tense and worried as he answers. “Good. You know, Stanford’s great, Jess is way too good for me. Never been happier really.” He pauses then, looking up at Castiel earnestly, and before Castiel has time to panic about what’s coming next it’s already happening. “Dean’s not doing too good, though.”

 _Ah_. There it is.

 “I don’t want to talk about Dean,” Castiel mutters, eyes darting towards the door, half-heartedly wondering whether it’d be best to just leave right now. After yesterday, he doesn’t want to talk about Dean, doesn’t want to talk about before or how it’s affected him. There’s still a little reserve left in him, and he’s going to fight to keep it there. Even if it means he has to leave and won’t be able to talk to Sam, if he continues to insist on discussing matters such as these.

Sam at least has the decency to look contrite, but that doesn’t stop his trajectory. “He misses you,” he says, quietly, intently. Castiel breathes in slowly, deep through his mouth and between his teeth, like he’s trying to inhale the ability to forget. He makes the decision to stand up, to walk away and not have to listen to Sam talk about what was, what could have been, but Sam’s hand on his wrist keeps him in place. “No, Cas, please, just – just hear me out?”

Castiel stops, thinks, and then sits down once again. Sam breathes a sigh of relief, unwrapping his hand from Castiel’s wrist and laying it back into his own lap, twitching his fingers together anxiously.

“I know that he regrets it,” Sam continues, looking down at his hands, speaking slowly, like every word matters. “I know he wishes every day that he’d just told dad to go fuck himself. He – he never says it, obviously, because this is _Dean_ we’re talking about here, but. But I know him well enough that I notice when he stares just a bit too long at every pair of blue eyes he sees, and I know he keeps every article you’ve ever written in the back of his wardrobe and thinks I have no idea.”

It’s hard to breathe. The room is too small. Castiel finds himself staring at Sam unblinkingly, his brain struggling to process that kind of information. It’s not like he didn’t realise that maybe Dean still had feelings for him; they ended badly, haven’t spoken for seven years, there’s bound to be something lingering that rears its head now that they’re seeing each other again. And, yeah, for Castiel it was always more than that.

For Castiel, it’s always been Dean. From the very day he was on the new neighbours’ doorstep he was Dean’s implicitly. Dean was his best friend and the love of his life. Castiel understands that no one will ever even come close to making him feel the way Dean did; like the sky was only blue if Dean was around, like everything finally fit. It’s why he hasn’t dated since, why he’s kept himself distant from any kind of romantic pursuit.

He already found his perfect, but it didn’t want him back enough.

Sam is looking at Castiel worriedly, and so Castiel breathes in. “It doesn’t matter,” he murmurs, not letting himself think for one second that he’s going to get a happy ending in all this. “Dean made his choice and I will respect that.”

“It wasn’t his choice!” Sam argues, his hands gesticulating and frustration seeping into his tone. “He went along with it because dad wanted him to! You know how he is with dad, he can’t say no to him, can’t risk being the disappointment.”

“I know that.”

“Well then why the hell did you let him just leave you like that?” There’s something akin to anger in Sam’s tone. Anger at Castiel, anger at Dean, anger at John, who knows, but it flicks something inside of Castiel and now he’s angry, too.

“Let him leave me?” Castiel fumes, his hand gripping convulsively around the coffee in his palm. The cup is still hot, burning into Castiel’s skin, but he pays it no mind in favour of finally letting out all of the things he’s been thinking for far too long. “What was I supposed to do? Wait around for him to suddenly not care what his father thought? Help him through it? You and I both know that there wasn’t a single thing I could’ve done that would have changed a damn thing.”

Sam looks down at his lap. “You could have tried.”

Castiel feels the anger inside of him subsiding, feels it seeping into the air and relieving itself, letting him alone and reminding him that Sam was fourteen when all of this happened, that he was young and felt guilty and all he’s ever wanted was for his brother to be happy. He exhales slowly.

“I’d have only ended up hurting everyone more if I’d done that. It was better to just leave and let Dean carry on with the life he’d been working up to since he was a child. He – he didn’t need me. I wasn’t that special. It was better for everyone if I just left.” Sam grits his teeth like he wants to protest, but Castiel’s not sure he can take much more of this so he doesn’t let him. “Can we – stop, talking about this now? Please?”

Sam opens his mouth as if to disagree, but then he visibly deflates in his chair. “Yeah,” he breathes, almost reluctantly. “Yeah, ok.”

Castiel smiles gratefully and Sam smiles back. The air is different now, hanging more heavily around their shoulders and making it difficult to just begin a new topic. Castiel’s hands are curled around his mug of coffee, Sam’s doing something similar. They just look at each other until Castiel coughs and breaks the tension.

“You’ve gotten a lot taller.”

Sam laughs out loud. “Yeah,” he admits, smiling so wide that Castiel feels himself smiling back, too. “I hit sixteen and suddenly none of my pants fit anymore. Oh man, the day I got taller than Dean I swear to God I thought he was gonna cry.”

“I can imagine,” Castiel replies, because he can, and he faintly hates not being a part of there to see it.

Here, with Sam, laughing and talking about everything they’ve missed in each other’s lives, it’s easy to forget about the report and Dean and the sinking feeling he gets in his stomach whenever he remembers that he’s not allowed to lean over and kiss Dean anymore. It’s so easy that, as has been the theme of the week, he loses track of time and somehow it’s late afternoon and the front door is being opened with a pair of keys.

Sam and Castiel are in the midst of laughing over the one time Castiel got so drunk at an office party that Balthazar managed to convince him to photocopy his ass when Dean walks in, grinning.

“What am I hearing about asses?” he asks, eyebrow raised.

Sam snorts. “Pervert,” he condemns. “Cas was just telling me about how he cannot hold his liquor at all.”

Castiel scowls at Sam when Dean pipes up. “Yeah, you always were pretty bad. Three beers and I’d be carrying you out to the Impala asleep.”

“I was not _that_ bad,” Castiel defends, but Dean just smirks at him.

“Oh yeah? Then how come every time we went to a party I’d wake up with yet another favourite shirt ruined because you’d thrown up on it?”

Castiel opens his mouth and then closes it. What’s the point in arguing? Castiel knows it’s true, Dean knows it’s true; it’d be a waste of time denying what made up most of his Saturday nights from the age of seventeen.

“Shut up,” he mumbles instead of a counter, and both Sam and Dean laugh at him for that.

Dean sets about busying himself with turning on the stove and checking in the fridge. “You staying for dinner?” he calls behind his shoulder, and it takes a second to register that he’s talking to Castiel.

“Um,” Castiel starts. Should he? Probably not. Will he? He doesn’t think he can say no again. “Yes, I think I will.”

Dean turns his head slightly and Castiel can see that he’s beaming, wide and unashamed. “Awesome,” he says, and then he pulls out packets of food that look so fresh and well sourced that Castiel wonders if it cost more than his monthly rent. “I was gonna make chicken.”

“You cook?” Castiel asks, surprised. The Dean Winchester that Castiel knew couldn’t cook worth a damn. Hell, more often than not him in the kitchen ended up in a broken microwave because he forget that metal is not its friend.

Dean gets out a saucepan and the back of his neck tinges red. “Yeah, I learnt. Living on my own meant I kinda had to, you know? Couldn’t expect Sammy to keep sending me care packages, could I?”

“No,” Castiel replies, still dumbfounded. “I guess not.”

The silence that follows is broken when Sam’s phone rings. He picks it out of his pocket, smiling when he sees the name on the screen, and presses it to his ear. “Hi, babe,” he says, and Castiel assumes it’s Jess. “Dean’s just making dinner now, yeah. How far away are you? Do you need me to come pick you up?”

Castiel hears Dean laugh faintly and assumes it’s due to Sam’s worried tone. Sam must hear it, too, because he flips Dean off, which makes Castiel laugh in turn.

“Bitch,” Dean mumbles.

“Jerk,” Sam mouths, because he’s a gentleman and he’s still on the phone to his girlfriend. Then he continues out loud with, “Oh, that’s not far. But it _is_ getting dark out so I’ll come get you. Nope, no arguments. I’ll be there soon. Love you, too.”

He hangs up and Dean laughs again. “You are so whipped, baby bro.”

“Whatever,” Sam mutters wearily, and Castiel can only assume that’s the thousandth time Dean’s said that to him since he began dating Jess. “I’m taking the Impala but I’ll be back soon. Try not to burn the house down with your god awful cooking while I’m gone.”

Castiel laughs and Dean scowls. Sam just smirks and walks out of the house and into Dean’s Impala leaving Castiel and Dean alone in the kitchen. Dean is stirring something in a pan, it occasionally giving off simmering noises, and Castiel remains sat at the kitchen table.

Eventually, he decides to say something. “Is your cooking that bad?” he asks innocently.

“I said I learned to cook,” he says cautiously. “I never said I learned to be any good at it.” Castiel laughs and sees Dean smile from where his head is tilted slightly to its right. “So, uh, you aren’t mad for me ditching you here with Sam today then?”

Castiel shakes his head. “No, it was nice actually. I haven’t been able to speak to Sam in a very long time.”

“Yeah,” Dean breathes, and does he sound a little guilty? “It has been a long time.”

Castiel sits in the chair, watching as Dean moves about the kitchen tops with ease, cutting things up and putting them into the pan, reaching into cupboards to take out spices that Castiel didn’t even know existed. It feels oddly domestic; like Castiel is waiting on his boyfriend to cook him dinner after a long day of work. In fact, it feels as though this would have been their life, if things hadn’t been so royally fucked from the start. The thought makes Castiel uncomfortable.

“Jess seems nice,” he comments, just for something to say.

“Yeah, she is. And she makes Sammy happier than I’ve ever seen him, so I guess I should make sure he doesn’t fuck this one up like I –”

He cuts off there, but Castiel knows exactly what he was going to say: _like I did_.  Silence stretches after Dean’s near admission and Castiel remains where he is, eyes darting around the room as he tries desperately to alleviate the awkward air.

“Do you want some help?” Castiel asks.

“Uh, sure. You can cut up the onions.”

Castiel nods and stands up, walks over to stand beside Dean. Dean smiles at him wanly and nods towards a chopping board, upon which a few onions are sat. Castiel takes the hint and rolls his shirt sleeves up to his elbows, takes his tie off and throws it onto the chair behind him. He undoes the top few buttons of his shirt and picks up the knife, begins slightly.

They begin to work in tandem; their elbows knocking occasionally, both of them smiling surreptitiously whenever it happens. They chat as the work, stupid, inconsequential things. The air isn’t awkward; no one’s speech is stunted by things not allowed to be said and they are both smiling more often than they aren’t.

The door reopens after a little while and in walk Sam and Jess. Jess comes straight into the room, smiling and talking about her great day without Sam. She dumps a pile of shopping bags by the kitchen door and begins leaning over Dean’s shoulder to pick at the food in the pan, Dean slapping her hand away the whole time.

Sam, though. Sam stays stood in doorway, looking between Castiel and Dean, at the miniscule amount of space between them caused by cooking over one surface. He must be taking in the domesticity of it all, because there’s a smile on his face, small and soft and happy, like he thinks he’s getting exactly what he asked for earlier.

But he’s not. No, he’s not. Castiel may be staying for dinner, and he may be talking to Dean as if the past isn’t a painful stab in his chest every time he looks at him, but that doesn’t mean that Castiel is anywhere near forgiving Dean, letting himself back down and get hurt. He spends the rest of the evening with the thought niggling in the back of his head, and it remains even as he drives home.

He won’t give in. Even though Dean still laughs like he used to; head thrown back and braying, gorgeous and uninhibited because it’s such a rarity he has to let it all out at once. Even though all Castiel wanted to do when Dean walked him to the door was kiss him and never let go.

He has to let go. He won’t give in.


	10. Chapter 10

The next three days pass in a blur of spending all of his time with Dean. On the Saturday they stay at Dean’s the whole day, alternating between watching crappy TV and Castiel asking questions that are vaguely relevant to the article. The Sunday is spent wandering around Manhattan aimlessly, just watching the tourists and conspiring together about how easy it’d be to pen them all up so they don’t clog the sidewalks anymore with their _oh my God it’s the Statue of Liberty!_ and _take a picture of me while I stand right in everyone’s way isn’t this fun_! They’re not bitter; no one likes tourists, it’s just a fact. Monday is more relaxed, meeting at Missouri’s diner first for breakfast and then going to a local park, watching Dean kick a soccer ball around with his baseball cap shoved low over his face. The disguise works on most people, except for the few big fans who are so familiar with Dean’s prolific technique that they spot him just from the way he passes the ball between the sides of his feet. These are the ones who ask for autographs, and who Dean willingly gives them to, because he’s actually _humbled_ that they recognise and admire his technique that he beams at them so wide Castiel wonders if he’s going to pull a muscle.

Somewhere along the way Castiel stops protesting when Dean calls him Cas, and that’s basically the final nail in the coffin of Castiel’s willpower.

By the time the Tuesday rolls around, there’s no awkwardness left in there at all. Which is worrying, to be honest, because awkward was essentially Castiel’s last barrier against Dean; his last defence against Dean’s small smiles and his bright eyes and the way he runs his hand through his hair when he’s nervous.

He hasn’t let himself give in, though, but there is a small part of him that whispers the words _not yet_ in the back of his brain.

On Monday they decide to spend the day in again, because Dean is lazy and Castiel likes being in Dean’s house, even though he won’t admit it. Sam and Jess are out doing tourist things – something for which both Dean and Castiel bemoan them as being irritating and typical – so it’s just Dean and Castiel there, alone and together in Dean’s living room. Dean is sat spread out on the couch, legs up and his head against the armrest, hands interlinked over his stomach. The way he’s stretched out means that his t-shirt is riding up, just a little, giving Castiel a glimpse of tanned skin and a dark trail of hair, darker and thicker than it used to be. Castiel finds himself accidentally captivated by it too often for his own good, and tries his hardest to remain focused on the TV. They’re watching some Western that Dean loves – and Castiel isn’t entirely sure if this one is a John or a Clint or a James movie – and Castiel isn’t nearly as captivated by it in the same way that he is Dean.

“You alright?” Dean asks, eyebrows furrowed in concern as he looks at Castiel, who is curled up on the armchair beside him. Castiel blinks and realises that he must have been staring at Dean with a vacant look on his face, so he coughs and shakes his head.

“I’m fine,” he lies.

“You sure? You’ve barely been paying any attention to the movie, and seeing as shit’s getting shot right about now, I consider that as close to blasphemy as an atheist can get.”

Castiel smiles despite himself. “I’m sorry. I promise I’ll pay more attention to the ‘shit getting shot’, as you say.”

“You better,” Dean replies, grinning. Castiel’s smile slips into a grin, too, and it only lessens when Dean turns his head back to the film in question.

Castiel tries to pay more attention then, too, and finds himself staring at a screen which shows nothing but desert and southern accents. He finds himself uninterested – and that was a theme when they were growing up, too, because they had essentially nothing in common in terms of their tastes – and after a few minutes he gives in and sighs.

Dean glances at him from the corner of his eye. “What?” he asks, gruffly.

“I don’t care for Westerns,” Castiel answers, and Dean breathes out a laugh.

“No shit. Well, what the else do you want to do then? I sure as hell ain’t watching that Doctor What shit you love so much.”

“It’s Doctor Who,” he corrects absently. “Ok well fine. How about you show me something I can write about in the article? Because right now it’s just going to be a periodical on how much star athlete Dean Winchester likes to sit on his ass and watch people shoot each other for no good reason.”

Dean thinks for a moment and then he sits up, rearranges his t-shirt and Castiel laments the loss of the smooth strip of skin even as he wills himself not to. He stands, a small smile on his lips as he looks down at Castiel.

“I’ve got an idea,” he says. “How about you come look at my trophies?”

The reply _is that a euphemism_ is right on Castiel’s tongue, but he doesn’t say it because that would just be stupid, and familiar, and shit, now he’s _actually_ thinking of it as a euphemism. Thinking of Dean’s hands on his own fly, pulling it down and letting his jeans pool around his ankles, hooking his thumbs into his underwear and pulling down, showing where that trail of hair leads to. Telling Cas with no qualms to _suck_.

He snaps himself out of the thought and agrees. “Um. Yes, ok. Where are they?”

“Upstairs,” Dean answers. “In my, um. In my bedroom.” Castiel’s eyes widen, and Dean hurries to add, “No, no! Not like that. They really are in my bedroom, I promise. I keep them in my wardrobe. It’s not, um. Like that.”

Castiel nods faintly. “Alright,” he replies, and the blush on Dean’s cheeks subsides slightly. “Lead the way.”

Dean smiles once more at Castiel and then starts walking out of the door and into the hall, leading up the stairs with Castiel no more than one step behind him. When they reach the landing Dean walks into the second door on their right, and Castiel follows. Inside, the room is a mixture of brown and cream, minimal and fashionable in a way that Castiel just _knows_ Dean had no hand in.

“Wait here,” Dean says, and then he walks off into an adjoining room, leaving Castiel alone. Alone in Dean’s bedroom. _Christ_ , how does he get himself into these situations?

Dean is gone for maybe a minute before Castiel starts to get bored, starts to let his nosy nature take over. There’s only so much time a person can spend scuffing a sock into the carpet and twisting their body aimlessly in the hope of finding something interesting to read hung up on the wall. The room is clean and tidy – probably because of the maid Dean was so embarrassed to admit having – with just a few chests of drawers and a large, double bed in its middle. Castiel begins to wonder how many people Dean has fucked on that bed, how many have been men and how many have been women, and then stops the thought process because it burns up his spine and itches his hands into fists.

He takes a step to his left, nearer to a wooden drawer that has sports magazines haphazardly thrown onto it. He picks one up, flicks through it, and realises that it’s the same subscription Dean used to have as a teenager. He puts it down and moves over, notices something out of the corner of his eye next to Dean’s bed. He walks towards it, vaguely recognises it, and it’s not until he’s close enough to touch it that it all clicks into place.

It’s the sweater. _His_ sweater. The one he left in Dean’s car one night all those years ago. It’s fabric is scratchy – _Cas, why do you even wear that sweater when all you do is itch in it? Shut up, Dean, I like the way the sleeves are too big for me, look!_ – and Castiel presses it to his nose and inhales, but can’t smell himself. He doesn’t know why he expected it to, to be honest, because seven years is long enough to eradicate a smell and did he really think it would still smell like his old cologne? The one that Dean bought him on his seventeenth birthday, the one that he never once forgot to put on, because wearing it was like having a part of Dean with him, always, even when he wasn’t around.

His mind is racing, thinking why the hell does Dean have this, why the hell was it next to it bed, why the hell does it smell more like the cologne Dean wears now than anything else? He’s rooted to the spot, feet fixed and eyes glazed, hands full of memories in woollen form, and that’s when Dean walks back in.

He’s carrying a cardboard box in his hands, full to the brim with what appears to be every trophy he’s won since the age of six, from his little right up to the major leagues. There’s a smile on his face, words on his tongue, but all of that abruptly drops the moment his eyes land on Castiel.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses, carelessly putting down the box of trophies and taking one step forward. Castiel can’t think of anything to do but stare at him, wide and confused eyes taking in the panic that plays through Dean’s irises. “Cas, _shit_ , I. I can explain.”

“Is this my sweater?” Castiel asks needlessly, because his mind is totally fucked up right now and nothing is running right.

A pause. “Yes,” Dean answers, and Castiel feels his knees begin to buckle and it’s a struggle to keep himself standing. “But I swear to you Cas, I can explain.”

Castiel’s short burst of laughter sounds hysterical even to his own ears. “Go ahead, Dean. I’m dying to know why the hell you’ve still got my sweater after _seven fucking years_.”

“Because I –” Dean starts, and then trails off. His mouth opens and closes, and his hands flex nervously by his sides. It’s all Castiel can do to wait and wait and wait and not just bolt, straight out of the door and into his car and away from this whole fucking mess he’s gotten himself into.

“Because you _what_?” Castiel snaps.

“Because I still fucking love you!” Dean yells back, his hands as fists as he takes another step forwards. There’s still a fair distance between Dean and himself, and Castiel’s mind is blanking out.

“You – you what?”

“I still love you,” Dean admits again, quieter this time, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “I never stopped. I have spent the last seven years of my life _hating_ myself for what I did to you, for what I did to us. Everyday I’ve thought what if I’d stuck up for you, what if I’d stood up to my dad. Because this? This whole life I’ve got going? It doesn’t mean jackshit, because every time I imagined having it, it was always you who was cheering me on in the crowd, you who was getting into bed with me every damn night.”

Silence, and then, “Dean, I –“

“No,” Dean cuts in, shaking his head. “No, let me finish.” He waits a second for Castiel to comply and nod his head. “Sometimes I’d think about coming to find you. I mean, I knew you worked at the Post, almost had a heart attack the first time I saw your name in there, I swear to God. Cas, I – I never stopped wanting to fix it. But I never did because I was too damn _scared_. Scared that you’d moved on, found someone better than me. Which is so fucking stupid, because all I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy, but there’s a really, horribly selfish part of me that wants you to be happy with _me_. And you shouldn’t give me a second chance, Cas, you really, really shouldn’t but – but I love you. Never stopped.”

Castiel looks down at his feet. There’s dirt under his fingernails, a stain on his white shirt, one sock has a hole in it. Blood pumping his ears, in his veins. His brain won’t work, it’s all turned to static that fizzes through his body, encompassing and debilitating and the only thing that brings him back is Dean’s fingers curling around his wrist.

Castiel’s head snaps up and he sees Dean, close, eyes so green and freckles pronounced. His jaw is slack, his eyes hurt and pleading and scared, so fucking scared, and his fingers on Castiel’s skin feel like coming home.

“Cas,” Dean breathes, and Castiel loses everything and presses forwards to kiss him.

And it’s – it’s what’s been missing. It’s the reason he should be waking up in the morning, the reason he should be eager to get home from work. Dean tastes like nachos and mint, the same and so different from when he was a teenager. Castiel’s hands are in Dean’s hair, tugging with his eyes screwed closed to everything but the feel of Dean’s arms around his waist, Dean’s tongue curling against his own.

Dean pulls away slightly, resting his forehead against Castiel’s and keeping his arms circling him. “Does this mean – do you – _Cas_ , what are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel admits. “But I know that I want to, so just – so just kiss me. Please.”

So Dean does, launching himself back into Castiel’s mouth, biting and licking, desperate and screaming of seven years of pent up love, seven years of missing someone who you’re not allowed to miss. Dean’s fingers grip bruises into Castiel’s hips, untucking his shirt and finding the skin underneath, rubbing his thumbs against Castiel’s hipbones reverently.

Castiel moves his hands from Dean’s hair to his own shirt, pulling off his tie and throwing it somewhere, unbuttoning his shirt and doing the same to that. He manages all of this without disrupting the kiss, and Dean moans into his mouth when Castiel is shirtless and pressing into Dean without inhibition, pushing their hips together and feeling the hard line of Dean’s erection that matches his own.

Dean’s t-shirt is next, coming up over his head and being lost to the room, Dean diving straight back into Castiel’s mouth the second he can. The feel of Dean’s chest against his own is a memory and an experience: there are new muscles, new scars, new _everything_ for Castiel to run his fingertips over. His hands are tracking just over the top of Dean’s jeans, lightly tracing the skin there, lingering on the trail of hair and making Dean moan, again.

“Cas,” Dean breathes, pulling away. “Cas, we – we can wait. We don’t have to do this now, we can wait, we can talk.”

But Castiel doesn’t want to. “No,” he answers, lips by Dean’s ear, ghosting breath there and making Dean shiver. “I want you to fuck me.”

There’s a slight hesitation then, a flash in Dean’s eyes that makes Castiel think that he’s worried this is going to be it, that they’re going to fuck and then Castiel is going to leave. A part of Castiel hates Dean for it, thinks he has no goddamn fucking right to be angry even _if_ Castiel were to do that. But then there’s also a part of Cas that loves Dean for it, loves that Dean is scared to lose him again. And it’s selfish and irrational and _stupid_ , but what about them isn’t, really?

Castiel’s not even sure what he wants anymore, can’t think past the thought of Dean touching him, Dean inside of him. So he just goes back to kissing Dean, because that he knows, that he’s sure of. The hesitance melts out of Dean within seconds of Castiel’s lips being back on his, and then their tongues are finding each other, hot and sloppy and desperate. Dean’s hands are on Castiel’s pants, deftly unbuttoning and unzipping them and letting them fall to pool around Castiel’s ankles. Dean then does the same to his own, stepping out of them afterwards and reminding Castiel to do the same.

And then it’s just them in their boxers, the warm air of Dean’s bedroom circling their bodies and creating an atmosphere of total insensibility that Castiel can’t find it in himself to care about. Dean’s thumb is hooked into the top of Castiel’s boxers, waiting long enough that Castiel realises he’s asking permission, and Castiel’s version of acquiescence is moving one hand from Dean’s hair to cup Dean through his shorts. Dean groans aloud at that, low and gruff, and Castiel swallows it hungrily, eagerly, like it’s his oxygen and he’s been cut off for seven years too long.

Dean takes the hint and yanks Castiel out of his boxers, following their path downwards until he’s on his knees in front of Castiel, head level with Castiel’s hard dick and his mouth parted, slightly and obscenely. He makes Castiel step out of his underwear, throws them in the same vague direction as the shirt went, and moves his hands up to Castiel’s thighs, curling them around the backs and digging his fingertips into the skin.

“God, Cas,” he murmurs, and Castiel can’t breathe. “I’ve missed your pretty cock so much. _Fuck_ , baby, I’ve missed everything about your gorgeous body so damn much.”

He moves forwards, pressing his lips lightly to the base of Castiel’s dick, and it’s a good thing his hands are holding on to Cas so damn tight, because Castiel’s knees begin to give way. It only gets worse when Dean rises up slightly, takes the tip of Castiel’s cock into his mouth and begins to suck, agonisingly light as he holds Castiel’s thighs to stop him from just bucking wildly into Dean’s mouth.

Cas’ eyes are screwed shut, so tightly that there’s light dancing behind his eyes, but there’s fire in his skin, too; each nerve ending alive with the sentiment of _Dean_. He’s so lost to the feel of Dean’s mouth and Dean’s fingers that he doesn’t even notice that Dean leans slightly to his right, lips never leaving Cas’ cock, and reaches into his bedside drawer to pull put a packet of lube.

He only realises it’s happening when Dean pulls off of Cas’ cock with an obscene _pop_ , and looks up at Castiel from beneath his lashes, smirking slightly. He rips open the sachet with his teeth, looking too much like a goddamn porn star for Castiel to be able to deal with, and slicks some of it onto his fingers. Castiel’s breath leaves him in a rush when comprehension sets in.

“Fuck,” Castiel breathes.

“Eventually,” Dean responds, and he’s so fucking predictable that Castiel just has to breathe out a laugh. “But right now I’m gonna put my fingers into that tight little ass of yours and open you up for me, get you ready for my dick, get you even harder and leaking and _begging_ for it, baby. You’re gonna be so bad you won’t be able to remember anything but my name when I finally let you come.”

Castiel’s muscles are on high alert, his breathing is shallow and ragged and he’s waiting, eyes closed, hands in Dean’s hair, and then _oh_. One of Dean’s fingers is trailing the cleft of his ass while Dean peppers light kisses on Castiel’s hipbone. It moves slowly but deliberately, Castiel trembling under the weight of what it means, of what will happen. It slowly moves until it’s at Cas’ hole, circling carefully, and Castiel can barely take it so it’s a fucking _joy_ when Dean finally presses it inside, past the tight ring of muscle until he’s up to the knuckle.

A choked off moan escapes Castiel’s lips and his fingers grip convulsively in Dean’s hair. “ _Dean_ , oh God. More, Dean, _please_.”

Dean just chuckles, warm against the skin of Cas’ abdomen. “Jesus, Cas, I almost forgot how much I love you like this.” He punctuates his sentence by pushing the first finger in fully, kneading Cas’ ass with his other fist as Castiel barely remains standing. “You want more still, angel?”

It’s all Castiel can do to nod, and then there’s another finger, long and pressing inside of him, making him buck into frictionless air as Dean continues to mouth at the angles of Castiel’s bones. Two fingers now, working in tandem, in and out of Castiel’s hole, rubbing and pulling and Cas can’t hold back the needy sounds falling out of him, the way he’s breathing Dean’s name like it’s a prayer he wants to fall asleep to every night for the rest of his life.

Dean’s mouth starts to suck and Castiel can feel the blood rushing to the surface, knows that he’ll have hickeys in just a few hours and he’s happier about that than he can ever remembering being about, well, _anything_ for the past seven years. Dean’s lips and tongue are greedy against his hip, and Cas’ hands are heavy on Dean’s shoulders, letting all his weight there to keep himself from simply collapsing.

Castiel’s cock is wet at the tip from where Dean’s mouth had been before and from where pre-come pearls, bouncing against his stomach as he thrusts into nothing. He becomes more and more desperate as the minutes pass, losing more and more of himself as Dean pushes in and out of him with two fingers, eventually adding a third that makes Castiel cry out loud.

It’s when he crooks them and hits Cas’ prostate, pressing relentlessly over and over as Castiel all but fucking _screams_ in between ragged breaths, that Castiel loses it entirely.

“Dean, _fuck_ , Dean, I swear to God, if you don’t get your cock in me now I will never forgive you.”

Dean’s laugh is strangled amidst the tone of pure _want_ in his voice, and he takes Castiel’s words for the truths that they are and pulls his fingers out, slowly and one by one, leaving Cas wet and open and overwrought as his mind skips to next and later and Dean inside him again, properly this time.

Dean stands up then, pressing one last kiss to the blossoming bruise on Cas’ hip just before he does, and when he’s stood entirely he leans forwards, presses an out of place gentle kiss to Cas’ lips. It’s almost reverent in its simplicity, and Castiel’s eyes fall closed as it happens, weakened by it entirely, and not in the way Dean’s fingers had torn him apart just before. The kiss is different, speaks of conversations they _will_ have, emotions they _won’t_ shy away from this time.

The kiss is Castiel both falling back in love with Dean Winchester, and realising there was never a time when he wasn’t in love with him, either.

“Cas,” Dean whispers, and it’s all he needs to say for Castiel to understand that he feels it, too.

Castiel nods, leans forward to reply to Dean’s kiss with an answering and tentative one of his own. He lets his lips linger for a second before Dean pulls away, moves to sit on the edge of the bed, his hand wrapped loosely around Castiel’s wrist as he looks up at him. Dean tugs gently, and Castiel gets the message and moves to sit on Dean’s lap, his naked ass pressed against the straining fabric of Dean’s boxers that covers his erection and his feet planted firmly against the mattress behind them.

Most of his weight is settled on Dean’s groin and thighs, and Castiel’s hands wrap around Dean’s neck, stroking up and down between his shoulder blades as his nose presses into the juncture of Dean’s jaw. Dean’s hands move to Cas thighs again, fingertips resuming the same shape and pressing back into the same bruises they’d gripped just earlier. Dean’s lips are on Cas’ temple, pressing lightly as he lifts his hips, wiggles ungracefully out of his boxers in such a way that makes Castiel laugh into his skin.

“You laughing at me?” he demands, the fake irritation in his voice being wholly overwhelmed by the smile that laces his tone.

Castiel just snuffs a laugh again. “Yes,” he answers and feels Dean’s smile widen against his cheek. “But I’d stop if you’d get on with fucking me.”

Dean’s laugh mixes with his moan. “Jesus, Cas, you have no idea what you do to me, do you?”

Castiel finds that the easier way to answer is to lift his head, kiss Dean again like it’s his dying breath, grind his ass down onto Dean’s cock – naked save for the condom he put on without Cas noticing – so filthily that the kiss turns into breathing, hot and muggy air between their mouths, tasting already like sweat and sex and _want_.

Hands on Cas’ thighs stop him moving. “Lift up,” Dean commands, and Castiel does so willingly. He uses his hands on Dean’s shoulders to push up, keeping his feet flat against the bed and holding himself up. Dean wraps one hand around his own cock, uses the other to hold underneath Cas’ thigh, and then Castiel’s lowering himself, taking Dean in inch by inch. It’s fucking _amazing_ , something that Cas has missed without letting himself realise it, something that’s just not the same when it’s with someone who’s not Dean.

He lowers and lowers until he’s seated again, and then winces slightly when Dean is fully in. Dean’s eyes flash, worried. “Don’t worry,” Cas assures, settling himself and groaning, low, against Dean’s lips. “It’s just – _ah_ – been a while.”

Dean’s breathing stutters. “Yeah?” he asks quietly, and Castiel knows what he’s thinking. Knows that Dean is thinking _how long_ and _who with_ and _someone’s been touching you who isn’t me_. He doesn’t know how to answer the hidden question because all he wants _now_ is Dean, totally and entirely, and he’s willing to give himself up to Dean’s command to let that happen.

So Castiel brushes his lips against Dean’s ear and whispers, “Fuck me, Dean.”

Dean groans and complies, unable to do anything but, and starts rocking his hips back and forth, using his grip on Castiel’s thighs to encourage him to do as well. It’s not long before they set up a rhythm, a beat that matches the pounding of Castiel’s heart against his rib cage and the pulse of blood in his veins.

Castiel breathes against Dean’s collarbone, deep and heavy as Dean fills him up inside and presses restless kisses to his cheek. The only sounds in the room are their breathing and the squeak of the bedsprings as they roll their hips together. It’s slow and deliberate, a journey and not a goal. Castiel’s hands itch to explore more than just the planes of Dean’s back, wish to relearn every new curve of Dean’s body, to lick every new muscle and to kiss every new scar. He wants to get to know this new Dean entirely, wants to study the man he has become and find out if it’s still the same as the teenager or infinitely better, and Castiel is pretty sure it’s the latter from the way they fit together so fluidly, seamlessly, like their bodies were made for each other.

“Missed you so much, baby,” Dean mutters, rocking harder and harder as Cas cries out and whimpers. “Missed everything about you.”

The mixture of Dean’s words and the pressure of his dick inside of Castiel, brushing against Cas’ prostate whenever they get the angle just so, is making Castiel’s orgasm burn in his spine. He’s close, so close, stupidly close, but he’s been imagining this day for so fucking long now and it’s _here_ and _happening_ and he doesn’t even care if it’s over soon because there gets to be _more_.

They rock and rock together, Castiel’s moans sinking into the skin of Dean’s neck as Dean continues to whisper a litany of _Cas_ and _baby_ and _missed you so much_. Everything is everywhere, every sensation of Dean inside pronounced by the fact that it’s _Dean_ , finally, again. A few minutes and then Castiel can tell Dean is close, too; can tell from the way his rhythm stutters and his hands grip tighter into Castiel’s thighs.

“Shit, Cas, I’m close,” he confirms, and then he bites down lightly on Castiel’s neck, making Cas cry out. “Touch yourself, baby, want to see you touching that pretty cock of yours, coming around my dick while I watch you.”

Castiel’s eyes fall shut at this, overwhelmed as one hand unconsciously moves away from Dean’s shoulders to wrap around his own dick, to start pumping in time to Dean’s thrusts. His breath escapes him as needy whines and moans, his hand moving faster and faster as Dean’s movements speed up, too. His spine is on fire and his skin is alight and he’s on the precipice, on the edge, ready to tumble over.

It’s when he brushes a thumb over the tip of his dick at the same time that Dean breathes out a reverent _Cas_ that Castiel loses it, coming over his own hand and both of their stomachs. He’s vaguely aware that Dean follows shortly after, choking moans and sucking a bruise into the juncture of Castiel’s shoulder.

A few minutes is how long it takes for them both to come down from their highs, the mind blowing bliss of his orgasm fading into a faint buzz that wracks through his body. He remains where he is, sat in Dean’s lap, hands back between Dean’s shoulders, mouth pressed into the curve of Dean’s neck.

Dean shifts backwards slightly and whispers, “Gotta get cleaned up.” Castiel nods faintly and lifts off of Dean’s soft dick, leaving him open and vulnerable as he lays back against the pillow, naked. Dean spares him one last glance before walking into the connected bathroom, returning seconds later with a cloth.

He walks over to Cas, his stomach already cleaned, and begins to wipe him down, throwing the cloth into the corner of the room when he’s done. Afterwards he just looks at Castiel, and Castiel looks back, entranced and scared, because what happens now?

Apparently, Dean decides when he leans down and presses a light kiss to Castiel’s lips, soft and fleeting before he climbs onto the bed and under the covers, next to Cas. Castiel follows his lead and climbs in too, tucking his head underneath Dean’s chin, wrapping one arm around Dean’s waist.

This is how they used to sleep, and the fact that they still slot together so perfectly tugs at something in Castiel’s stomach.

“Stay,” Dean whispers, the words mingling in Castiel’s hair. Dean’s arm is around Castiel’s shoulder, his fingers tracing up and down the top of Castiel’s arm.

“Ok,” Castiel replies without hesitating.

Castiel can feel Dean’s smile and he closes his eyes, safe in Dean’s arm and finally, _finally_ so happy. He’s got this back now. He’s got Dean and happiness, he’s got Sam and Jess, he loves his job and above all _Dean,_ Dean; he’s got Dean.

He falls asleep to the sound of Dean’s breathing and the soft, happy beat of Dean’s heart.

And he’s woken up by the slamming of a door and a yell of, “Dean Winchester where the fuck are you?” ringing up the stairs in a voice that makes Castiel’s stomach drop and his blood run cold.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: homophobia/homophobic language

“ _Shit_ ,” Dean hisses, rushing out of bed while Castiel remains frozen in shock. He starts to grab his clothes from around the room, pulling them on until he’s fully dressed with his zipper hanging open, and Castiel is beginning to have a sense of déjà vu that’s making him feel nauseous.

Dean finishes dressing and looks at his phone, cursing when he sees a multitude of missed calls from Sam. He was probably trying to warn them that John was in town, probably not knowing quite what they were doing, but knowing all the same that just Castiel in Dean’s house would be enough to fuel his rage. Dean then turns to Castiel, eyes wide and scared and his mouth hanging open. His eyes flicker around the room, desperate and Castiel knows that’s he’s looking for somewhere logical for Castiel to hide.

“Get in the closet,” he settles on, commanding in a rushed whisper, and Castiel would laugh at the irony if it weren’t for the fact his heart feels like it’s in an iron grip. “Please, just hide. I’ll get rid of my dad and then we can sneak you out of here and I’ll come see you tomorrow, ok? But right now we’ve gotta hide you.”

He moves to bunch up Castiel’s clothes, throwing them onto the bed beside Castiel and looking at him imploringly. Castiel in still in the bed, naked and cold now that he’s alone, hearing the sound of a voice in the hallways downstairs, furious and loud, and Castiel realises that this is the kind of clichéd parallel he couldn’t even _comprehend_ finding himself in again.

He takes the clothes, putting all of them on, save his shirt, after climbing out of the bed, and the look on Dean’s face is one of pure relief. It does little to quell the rage swelling inside of Castiel. Once dressed again, he stands on the opposite side of the room to Dean and glares at him.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks, pointlessly.

Dean looks pained. “I know, I know, I’m so sorry, baby, but I just can’t let him think that I’ve given into myself again.”

Somewhere, Castiel knows that something inside of him recognised that they would never get their happy ending, anyway. But that doesn’t stop a larger part of him wanting to yell and scream and break everything Dean owns the way Dean has broken his heart, twice now.

“Don’t call me baby,” Castiel hisses, and Dean winces. “So, what was all that talk earlier, then? Everything you said about wishing you’d stood up for me, wishing you hadn’t let your dad tear us apart, that was all total bullshit? I can’t fucking _believe_ I let myself think we could actually be together, that you’d changed enough that it wouldn’t turn out exactly the same as before.”

“No, Cas, I –“

But Castiel doesn’t let Dean finish. “Save it. I can’t wait for you to become the person you keep promising you’re going to be. I can’t fucking wait and be your dirty little secret, something you _clearly_ won’t share with the world seeing as you won’t even tell your goddamn _father_ that we’re back together. No, you know what? Fuck you. I’m leaving.”

He puts the shirt on without taking the time to button it, shoves his tie into his pocket and starts to walk towards the door, intent on storming out and to hell if John sees him, because Dean can explain that one away on his own. Dean is behind him, stood still and silent and Castiel thinks that speaks volumes about how their relationship will always work, and Castiel is about a foot from the open doorway when it suddenly becomes blocked by something big and angry.

John is stood there, taking in the scene of a rumpled bed, Castiel’s shirt not done up, Dean’s fly open, the hickeys on Castiel’s neck. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what’s been happening, and John Winchester is certainly not an idiot.

Castiel stops short, frozen by John’s rage filled eyes. He hears Dean hissing cuss words under his breath, panicked and scared, but all Castiel can do is look at John, the man who took his everything away from him, doing the same thing again.

But Castiel is older now. Not the same eighteen year old whose world revolved around Dean, and so this time, he takes a pre-emptive strike.

“Don’t worry,” he spits out sarcastically. “I’m leaving. Your precious son can keep his star career as America’s favourite heterosexual.”

He goes to move around John, and finds that he can’t get around him, because John steps to his right, blocking the doorway more fully and keeping Castiel trapped between himself and Dean.

“You’re not going anywhere,” John bites out, hands curling into fists in a way that scares Castiel. If it came to a fight, Castiel knows that John could really hurt him, and he’s not even sure if Dean would try and stop his father.

Castiel takes a breath. “Get out of my way,” he says, putting calmness into his voice. “Let me leave and I won’t come back. Believe me, there is no way I’m coming back after this.”

“I thought you were fucking over this disgusting phase,” John says to Dean, ignoring Castiel but not letting him leave. “I thought you were done fucking the neighbour’s little queer. So why the fuck is it that when I called Sammy last week to ask about visiting too he starts stuttering and saying it’s not a good idea? Why is that when I call up your agent to ask about your next season, he tells me that you’re currently involved in a report written by Castiel fucking Novak?”

He stops there, and Castiel doesn’t have to turn around to know that Dean is chewing on his lip, looking twenty years younger than he actually is in the face of his father’s anger. The room is colder now, somehow; with cool air brushing against Castiel’s bare skin, reminding him of the way the air felt against him the first time this happened. He begins to feel sick and needs to be out of this room right fucking _now_ , because the walls are closing in around him.

“There’ll be no more report,” Castiel addresses John, causing John to turn his vitreous eyes back on him. “I’ll tell them I can’t do it anymore. Or Dean can. I don’t care. But I never want to see any of you again just as much as you don’t want to see me, so just – just let me fucking _leave_.”

John sneers, taking a step forwards that makes Castiel takes a step backwards in turn. “You couldn’t keep away, could you? Couldn’t stop yourself from making my son _queer_ again, making him think that the likes of you are what he wanted. I’ve got news for you: he doesn’t want you. You’re disgusting.”

Castiel clenches his jaw, feels muscles twitching there. Dean is silent. Still, again, always.

“Let me leave,” he asks again.

“No,” John answers, taking a few more steps until he’s towering over Castiel, large and angry and cruel, his teeth grinding and looking as though he wants to punch Castiel.

Castiel stands, takes it, refuses to back down again. He’s older, an adult, knows that he is going to leave and never come back and he is going to get through this, just like he did last time.

Then Dean speaks. “Let him go,” he says quietly. Castiel blanches. “Just – let him go, dad. Please.”

John looks at his son, and then back to Castiel. Anger flickers through his irises, pure and unadulterated and fucking terrifying, but then he takes a step away, frees up the doorway and Castiel’s path away from this whole situation.,

He takes it, gladly. Storms out of the house, leaves John yelling at Dean, using words like _giving up_ and _nasty queer_ and _thought you were over this_ , and gets into his car, drives the whole way home without thinking about what happened. Inside his apartment he undresses slowly, resolutely doesn’t look in any mirrors to see if the bruises on his skin from Dean’s fingertips and lips are just as bright and telling, and climbs into bed. He doesn’t cry. He just feels numb.

He’s not sure which one is worse, anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angsty and short, sorry!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because yesterday's update was so short and I'm a lovely person, I'm going to upload the new chapter today. Enjoy!

The heavy sound of pounding on the door wakes Castiel up the next morning. He sits up blearily and rubs at his eyes. There are a few seconds of bliss where he doesn’t recall last night, but then suddenly it’s there, overwhelming and creeping into the pit of his stomach, making him feel sick with shame and anger. The pounding on the front door persists, so he swings his legs out of bed, walks slowly towards the door and feels panic set into his skin. What if it’s Dean? Or John? Castiel doesn’t think he could face another confrontation, so he stops just short of the door, leans against the wood and calls out.

“Who is it?” he asks, and dreads an answer.

When it comes, though, the panic subsides. “Cas? It’s Sam. And Jess. Can we come in, please?”

Castiel takes a second to think, to consider why Sam would be here, if he knows, if he’s going to make Castiel talk about _it_. Castiel can’t even bear to _think_ about it, so his hesitance is justified if he wants to keep his peace of mind. In the end he lets Sam in, though, because Sam is his friend, no matter what, and he doesn’t want to shut him out. So he takes a step back, breathes in deeply and opens the door.

Sam and Jess are stood side by side, their hands twined together between them, looking at Castiel with so much pity that Castiel just _knows_ that they know. He vaguely wonders if this is new information to Jess, or if maybe Sam had told her from the beginning, but the press of worry in Castiel’s skin keeps him from focusing on it too much.

“Hi,” Sam says, sheepish.

“How did you find out where I live?” Castiel asks, leaving Sam and Jess stood on the doorstep.

Sam ducks his head. “We, uh. We went to your office and told them we needed it for the report. Your boss is kind of an asshole, by the way. Wouldn’t believe I was Dean’s brother.” Castiel flinches slightly at the mention of Dean’s name, and hates himself for it as soon as Sam and Jess begin to look even more pitying. “So I asked someone else. Balthazar? He gave it to us.”

“Oh,” Castiel replies, because he’s not sure what else to say. He sure isn’t going to initiate a conversation about anything that happened, and he’s still not entirely certain that he won’t just slam the door in their faces if they try to do it, too.

“Can we,” Sam starts, and then stops to bite his lip. “Can we come in, maybe?”

Castiel swallows. “I – I don’t think that’s a very good idea. I’m tired and I just. Just really don’t want to have to think about anything, ok? So, I’m sorry, and maybe if you come back another day I’ll be happy to let you guys in, but just – not today, yeah?”

Sam nods slightly, taking a step backwards. But Jess doesn’t. Instead she takes a step forwards, untangles her hand from Sam’s and starts to talk.

“Hi, Cas. Um, Castiel. Right. It’s just, well, we know about what happened last night, and it was horrible, and of _course_ we understand that you don’t want to talk about it, and we won’t make you. But we don’t want you to be alone today. So – so how about you let us in and we’ll drink tea and talk about the weather, or something?”

Castiel smiles in spite of himself. “Um,” he starts, and then looks up. They both look at Castiel with what he realises is more like kindness than pity, and Castiel is infinitely thankful for that. So he lets them in. “Ok. Come in.”

He steps aside enough that they can come in, and when they do he sees them glance around the apartment. It barely looks lived in, because it barely is: Castiel spends most of his life working, and his home reflects his inability to remain domesticated. The three of them stand in the room, looking at each other for what feels like an eternity of silence, before Sam speaks up.

“So,” he says, and stops there. Apparently he hadn’t thought past an opener.

Castiel smiles wanly. “You mentioned drinking tea?”

Jess outright beams. “Yeah,” she breathes. “I’ll have one. Sam will, too, don’t let him talk crap about how coffee is so much better.”

“Hey,” Sam defends, nudging her in the ribs with his elbow. “I never talk crap.”

She smiles up at him, adoring. “Sure, sweetie. You keep thinking that.”

Castiel begins to feel uncomfortable, looking at the way they look at each other, reminding him too much of everything he’d let himself hope for when he’d fallen asleep with his head against Dean’s chest. So he goes into the kitchen, busies himself with the kettle until he’d got three mugs of tea in front of him. Sam appears beside him to help him carry them, and then they settle in the living room, Cas on an armchair and Sam and Jess sharing the bigger couch.

“So,” Sam says again, and Jess breathes out a laugh beside him.

“You gotta stop saying that,” she says, earning another nudge in the ribs, and Castiel laughs, too. The noise startles him when it comes out, because he did not expect to be able to laugh so soon, but the smile lingers afterwards at the way Sam and Jess look so happy that he seems ok. Not great, but ok.

And from there it’s easy. Words and conversations flow, Castiel learning more about Jess and growing to really like her through it. She’s kind and thoughtful, funny as she gently teases her boyfriend. He sees the relationship between them, sees that this is clearly _it_ , that Sam has maybe found it so young, and that he’s going to hold on and not let go.

Castiel wishes that Dean were a bit more like his brother in that respect, and then mentally chastises himself for allowing lingering thoughts of a relationship to enter his mind.

They stay for hours, casually talking, drinking Castiel out of all of his tea, and no one mentions anything Castiel doesn’t want them to until around midday. It’s Sam who does it, obviously, because Sam tries to be too helpful for his own good and thinks that everything needs to be talked about, that no one should have to carry a burden alone. But Castiel wants to carry this alone, wants to ignore it and hate himself for it. It may not be healthy, but it’s how he’s always coped when it comes to Dean Winchester.

So when Sam says, “So, um. Last night?” like it’s a question, Castiel shakes his head firmly.

“No,” he asserts, looking Sam dead in the eye. “You promised me I wouldn’t have to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about. I want to forget _it_ and forget _him_ and move on with my life like I’ve been doing for the past seven years. So, please, just don’t.”

Jess places hand around Sam’s wrist, curling the fingers and stroking the skin underneath. It’s placating, helping, a reminder that Sam can’t just make Castiel do what he doesn’t want to, can’t make him face what he doesn’t want to.

Sam takes a breath. “Ok, fine. I won’t. I just want you to know that Jess and I aren’t staying at Dean’s anymore. We’ve moved into a hotel for the rest of our time here. I didn’t want to be around dad or Dean after we found out what happened.”

Castiel’s fingers flex around his mug. “Ok. Thank you?”

Sam laughs and shakes his head, but it sounds more sad than anything else. “You don’t have to thank us, Cas. I can’t fucking believe that happened, that Dean _still_ didn’t do a fucking thing. I can only imagine what dad must have been saying, but just – I’m sorry. Sorry that dad is the way that he is, that Dean is a fucking asshole. I’m just sorry for everything my family has put you through.”

“It’s fine,” Castiel says, even though it isn’t. “I can move on. I did it before. I can do it again.”

He doesn’t say that it’ll hurt now more than ever, now that he knows that Dean grew up to be the kind of loyal, kind, funny man that Castiel always suspected he would do. He doesn’t say that now that he knows that their bodies still work together, now just corresponding but fucking _flying_ , giving Castiel sensations he never even suspected he could have.

Instead, he keeps quiet, and lets the pain of rejection swell inside him once again, all encompassing.

Sam and Jess go home soon after that, and when Castiel receives a voicemail that night from his boss saying that he’s expected at the Winchester residence tomorrow morning at 9 to continue on with the report, Castiel realises that the only reason he hadn’t broken down before is because he’d thought he’d never have to see Dean again.

But now he does, and he deals with it the way he couldn’t when he was 18: he takes a shower, goes out to the nearest bar and hits on the first guy he sees. He gets wasted over the course of an hour, using the time in between sips to kiss and bite at this guy’s lips – he never bothered to ask for a name, or maybe he did, he just can’t remember – and it proceeds to him getting fucked by this nameless and, for all intents and purposes, faceless guy, in the bathroom stall.

He tries not to notice the green shade of the guy’s eyes, but he’s not quite that good at lying to himself.


	13. Chapter 13

Castiel’s head is thumping, beating against his temples like something inside wants to escape. There are bright lights behind his eyes every time he blinks, and his mouth is dry and tastes of a mixture of things he doesn’t care to dwell too long on. But he wakes up anyway, is professional as he dresses in his usual suit, gets into his car and drives over to Dean’s house as though nothing ever happened.

That’s going to be his style of defence: pretend nothing ever happened, act as though he was _supposed_ to from the start. Maybe then he’ll be ok.

He arrives on time, sits in his car a few minutes longer than probably necessary, and steels himself to get out. He rings the doorbell, waits, feels his skin itch and his brain almost burn as it tries to make him think about what happened just a few days ago, about who is going to be waiting for him inside and how the fuck is he even going to handle this?

When the door opens, John is stood in its doorway. Castiel physically stops himself from cowering. John is glaring at Castiel, and it’s all Castiel can do to open his mouth and ask, “Why?”

Because _why_? Why would he be asked to come back here? He’d said he’d never come back, and he’d meant it: he wanted to give the article up, no matter how good for his career it would have been, because he’d fucked everything up, again, and now he just wanted to stay far, far away from it.

But, apparently, the Winchesters weren’t willing to let him go that easily. “Dean’s agent said the report would be good for Dean’s contract,” John explains, almost growling through his teeth. “And you’re boss said there was no one else available to pick up. So you can continue with this ridiculous fucking report, but that is _it_ , you hear me? I don’t want you talking to my son about _anything_ that isn’t related to it.”

“Fine,” Castiel replies, putting all the strength into his voice that he can, showing no signs of weakness. “This will be entirely professional.”

John nods, teeth still grinding as he lets Castiel in. He nods his head in the direction of the dining room, mutters, “He’s in there. I won’t be far, got that?” and walks off, leaving Castiel alone in the hallway. He stares at the closed door for a long time, fingers opening and closing and she breathes in and out, slowly. Finally, he walks over to it, opens it, and walks through.

Dean is already sat at the table, hands clasped together on top of it, and his head whips round when Castiel enters. His mouth falls open, and Castiel can all but _see_ the words on his tongue, the apologies and the explanations and the _baby, please, you gotta talk to me_ , but Castiel refuses to hear it.

“Don’t,” he warns, taking a seat. Dean’s mouth snaps closed again, but he won’t stop looking at Castiel pleadingly, so Castiel drops his eyes to the table before continuing. “We’ve already covered most of the important topics for the article, so from now on I think it will suffice to have meetings for a few hours every other day in order to polish off some things. But apart from that we won’t have to see each other all that much anymore.”

Dean clears his throat. “You don’t wanna see me anymore then, huh?”

Castiel raises his head to glare at him. “No,” he replies, tone icy. “I do not want to see you anymore. Now can we please get on with this? I have places to be.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean asks, tone challenging. He’s clearly not going to play nicely today, Castiel can already tell. “Where’s that?”

Castiel sighs and lays his pen down. He rubs his fingers over his temples, wills away the pounding headache and the memory of being kissed and fucked, of having someone whose name Castiel can’t remember call him _pretty_ and suck hickeys into his neck.

It was a stupid thing to do, and he knows that, but at least now there’s two things he’s done recently that he can regret. It means he can focus less on how stupid it was to fall for Dean’s charm once again.

“None of your business.” He bends his head over the work, resolute in his want to get it over and done with as soon as possible. “Now please can you just look over these notations and tell me what you are comfortable with me using so that I can begin the first draft of this article.”

He chances a glance back up then, and sees that Dean is barely even paying any attention the words that Castiel is saying. Instead, his eyes are transfixed on Castiel’s neck, and when Castiel brings a hand up to trace over the spot being inspected, he feels the familiar throb of pain as his fingertips brush over a hickey.

One that Dean didn’t leave.

“Who,” Dean starts to say, and then stops and swallows. Castiel continues to hold his hand over the bruise, and feels his face heat up. Dean breathes out a hollow laugh that has Castiel’s stomach knotting uncomfortably. “You don’t fucking wait around, huh?”

Castiel feels indignation rise in his throat like bile. “Wait around for what?” he spits out as a reply, and feels malicious victory in the way Dean flinches at his words.

“Who was it?” Dean asks, and Castiel gets even angrier because what makes him think he’s got the fucking _right_? “Was it Balthazar?”

Castiel stands up, the chair scraping against the wooden floor as he does.”I said _don’t_ , Dean. You have no right to ask me that question.”

Dean stands up, too. “Fuck I don’t!” he replies, close to yelling. “We slept together, what, two fucking days ago? And since then you’ve managed to go out and find someone else to fuck? What are you, a fucking slut? Is nerdy little Castiel Novak a fucking _slut_ now?”

“Shut up,” Castiel warns, but Dean doesn’t listen.

Instead, he takes a step forwards and crowds Castiel against the wall. “If you’re such a slut how about you sleep with me again then, huh? If you’re so fucking _eager_ to be fucked, how about you drop your pants right here like the little whore you are and let me fuck you?”

 _I want to forget you_ , Castiel thinks. _I want to fuck everything that isn’t you and hope that, maybe someday, I’ll find someone that compares even a little bit_.

He doesn’t say it, though. Instead, he pushes at Dean chest, Dean stepping backwards easily, a cruel and hateful glint in his eye. “I’m leaving,” Castiel asserts, making to walk out of the door, but as he goes he hears Dean shout after him before he even reaches the handle.

“Yeah, go on,” he goads, voice louder than it should be. “Go find someone else to fuck you, fucking tramp!”

Castiel whips around, hands at fists by his sides. “Better than a fucking closet case who lives by daddy’s rules and serves his whole life to make his dead momma proud!”

He regrets the words as soon as they leave him. Dean blanches, taking a step backwards as though physically hit, and Castiel feels shame crawl into his skin like condemnation. He hates Dean in this moment, but also knows that Mary is _everything_ to Dean, and he can’t believe he just allowed himself to say

“Get out,” Dean says, low, threatening.

All Castiel can do is nod and collect his things, hurry out of the room with blood pounding in his ears and the sight of Dean’s distraught and angry face flashing behind his eyes. In the hallway, he sees John, standing beside the door and smirking malevolently.

“Wow,” he says, advancing on Castiel, blocking the path to the door. “I was worried you were gonna worm your way back in, but after that display I think I can be pretty damn certain that my boy’s never gonna wanna touch you again. So, thanks, I guess.”

Castiel chooses to ignore him and pushes past John, leaving him laughing cruelly in the hall, and gets into his car, speeds home just so that he can get away from them as soon as possible. He runs up the stairs of his apartment building, split between going out and getting wasted again and just curling up in bed and pretending this shit isn’t happening to him, but when he lets himself into his apartment he sees Balthazar, sat on his couch. He allows himself a second to wonder how the hell Balthazar even got in, but then is struck by a different thought.

“Why are you here?” he asks bluntly, but it’s fine because Balthazar is used to it.

He showcases this familiarity when his response is to stand up, smile kindly, look Castiel dead in the eye. “Because I haven’t seen you in a week and you’re not returning any of my phone calls.” Castiel flinches, feeling guilty. “And so now I am going to ambush you and find out what the hell has been going on, because I have a suspicious feeling it has something to do with those love bites on your neck and the fact you look about five seconds away from breaking down and crying.”

“Oh,” Castiel breathes.

“You’re not getting out of this one,” Balthazar assures, and sits back down. “So come sit the fuck down and for one second act like a normal human being by telling me what the hell is going on with you.”

Castiel decides that if he can’t tell Balthazar, his best friend, who the hell can he tell? So he sits down, and allows himself to _finally_ talk about it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, there's some change in plans. Basically, I will now be uploading a new chapter every day for this week, which means the entire fic will be posted by Saturday. If you want to know why, I'd be glad to tell you at my tumblr (endversed.tumblr.com) privately (i.e. not on anon), but essentially I just want this over and done with ASAP, and this is the way I'm choosing to do it. So here's chapter fourteen, the next four will be coming out over the next four days.

“Tell me,” Balthazar commands, and as much as Castiel wants to, the words are stuck in his throat, dry and heavy and horrible.

He is sat on the couch beside Balthazar, hands in twined together in his lap, ankles crossed on the floor and looking down as if by not having to look at anything in particular he’ll get up the courage. Balthazar sighs and reaches out a hand to place over Castiel’s, rubs his thumb over the skin encouragingly, and it reminds Castiel that this is _Balthazar_ , and he wants to tell him.

So he does. “You know that report I was assigned to recently, the Winchester profile?” he starts with, and lifts his head to see Balthazar nod cautiously. “Well, I, uh. I knew Dean already, from when we were younger.”

He pauses there, bites at his bottom lip hard enough for it to hurt. Balthazar’s thumb continues to rub soothingly over Castiel’s skin and he prompts, “And?”

“And,” Castiel starts, eyes flickering around. He’s never actually said the words aloud before, talked properly and in detail about what happened that night, everything he lost. The idea of even _doing_ so is foreign to him, so caught up in keeping Dean’s lies his whole life. “And we were best friends since we were both just children, basically inseparable, and then when we turned sixteen it became – more.” He pauses again, looks up at Balthazar’s face, expecting shock or horror or _something_ , but he’s just met with a neutral look, kind and comforting. “We were together in secret for about two years, only his brother knew beside the two of us, and it was all going to be fine: we were going to go to colleges close to each other, keep our relationship going because I – I loved him so much. God, you have no idea how much I loved him. He was my _everything_ , and I’d never even thought about relationships or anything like that until the day he kissed me.”

“Right,” Balthazar says after a short silence, one where Castiel resumes staring at his own lap, not knowing how to say what happened next without his voice cracking and his eyes stinging. “Well. I – I did presume as much, to be honest. I’ve never seen you flustered by someone, especially not where your work is concerned, but I didn’t expect it to go quite as far back as that. What happened next?”

Castiel draws in a deep breath and steels himself to just _say it_. “He left me,” Castiel admits, and hears Balthazar suck in a breath in response. “We were eighteen and it was just after graduation and his dad found us together. We – we hadn’t told him because he was dead set on Dean’s career becoming professional and – and we both knew that Dean being gay and having a boyfriend was never going to be allowed. It was stupid, in retrospect, because we were so full of _future_ , thinking we’d never have to break up and that somehow Dean could have both, we could have each other. But Dean’s father finding out ruined all of that. Or, well, him finding out and proceeding to call me every name under the sun didn’t help, but what ruined it all, mostly, was Dean choosing to go with his father and saying that he wanted the career over me.”

Silence follows then, deep and consuming, sinking into Castiel’s bones and making him fidget uncomfortably. Somewhere in the back of his mind he’d always assumed that finally talking about it could help him, admitting aloud that what Dean did to him hurt him more than he thought another person ever could hurt him, would make everything better, allow him to move on properly like he never was able to before.

But having done it now, he realises that it’s not the case. There’s no sudden overwhelming feeling of accomplishment, no _ding_ in the recesses of his mind allowing him to forget and forgive and find someone else. Instead, he just feels the same hollow emptiness in his veins, the same desperate need to have Dean choose him, tell him he loves him, let go of everything for him.

Which is so fucking _selfish_ , he knows that, honestly he does, but that doesn’t stop him for wanting it so much it’s become a part of him.

“Oh, Cassy,” Balthazar breathes, sounding so sad that Castiel has to blink to keep his eyes dry. Balthazar edges on the sofa to wrap his arms around Castiel’s shoulders, pull him to his chest where Castiel lays his head, hands clutching the fabric of Balthazar’s jacket. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Castiel breathes out a hollow laugh. “How could I?” he asks. “He left me so that he could have his career, and I kept my mouth shut and let him do that. I still loved him even after everything.”

 _I still love him now, even after everything_ , he thinks, and knows that Balthazar picks up on that, too.

“And,” Balthazar starts hesitantly, one hand carding through Castiel’s hair calmingly, “what’s happened since you’ve had to see him again?”

Castiel closes his eyes and fists his hands tighter into Balthazar’s clothes. “I didn’t mean to,” he says quietly. “I was supposed to be purely professional, to get the job done as quickly and painlessly as possible, but Dean is just so – so _Dean_ , and I couldn’t help myself.”

Balthazar’s hand continues to run through Castiel’s hair, the other rubbing up and down his arm. Castiel feels warm and safe, wrapped in a cocoon of his best friend, in his shitty apartment, talking about his life falling apart. But he’s not crying, he doesn’t feel numb: it _hurts_ , of course it hurts, but Balthazar being there makes everything just that little bit more ok.

“I slept with him again,” Castiel confesses, and Balthazar’s hand stills only momentarily. “We were at his house a few days ago, just the two of us, and he wanted to show me something and I followed him up to his bedroom and then. Then I saw this sweater that I used to wear when I was a teenager, the one I left in his car the night we broke up, and it was next to his bed and it just – it just _hit_ me that Dean still cared about me enough to keep something like that, thought about us together because it was next to his _bed_ , like he slept with it or something ridiculous like that. And then he came in and saw that I’d seen it, and he started talking about how much he regretted leaving me, how much he loved me and thought about me and all of my reserve crumbled and I – I kissed him. And then we slept together. And it was – it was so fucking perfect that it _hurt_ to know I’d missed out on it all for seven years.”

“Shit,” Balthazar mutters, pressing a kiss to the crown of Castiel’s head. “Are those love bites from him, then?”

Castiel’s face burns hotly. “Um,” he starts. “No. Well, some of them are, I. His father found us. Again. I know, I know, it’s fucking ridiculous but he – he found out I was writing the article and he flew out and found us together in Dean’s bedroom. He went crazy, obviously, started shouting and calling me a little queer again and Dean – Dean stood by and let it happen.”

Castiel hears Balthazar’s teeth grind together. “I’m going to wring his bloody neck,” he mutters angrily, and Castiel smiles despite himself.

“Thank you, but that’s unnecessary,” he replies, and feels Balthazar’s laughter, warm in his hair. “I just – I wish I could hate him.”

In Balthazar’s arms it’s easy to admit all of things he’s kept inside for so long. It’s so different to being with Dean: it doesn’t make his stomach swell this excitement, doesn’t make his brain short circuit and his pulse quicken at the contact. Being with Dean makes Castiel stupid, makes him do dumb things and make bad decisions. It’s an unhealthy kind of love, too consuming, too much for Castiel to really handle.

But with Balthazar? Maybe it could be right.

Balthazar wants him. Shows it every day by flirting with him and swatting at his ass, being everything that Castiel _should_ detest, but instead finds himself intrigued and humoured by. Balthazar is sweet underneath his sarcasm, friendly and loyal and above all _open_ about himself. He’d never make Castiel lie or hide, never have to make a choice that involved something _or_ Castiel. He is under no delusions that he could ever love anyone as much as he loves Dean, but maybe he could be – content, with someone else, if he let himself try.

So he untangles himself, sits up straight and looks Balthazar dead in the eye. “Help me,” he says, and only gives Balthazar a second to be confused before he kisses him.

This, as well, is nothing like with Dean.  Balthazar’s lips are warm and dry, and Castiel closes his eyes and brings his hands up to cup Balthazar’s jaw, to rub a thumb across its juncture. Balthazar makes a noise of surprise in the back of his throat, and Castiel is still trying to convince himself that this feels fine and good when Balthazar pushes him away with two hands against his chest.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks, astounded.

Castiel blinks. “I – you – help me,” he says helplessly, unable to articulate properly the logic he had just a minute before. Balthazar sits up and moves away slightly, far enough that Castiel’s hands fall to his sides and the cold swell of rejection courses through him. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, I just – I just always assumed that maybe you wanted me, because you – you flirt so much. But you flirt with everyone, don’t you? So it’s not like I’m special so I – I am so sorry, please can we pretend that never happened?”

Castiel is aware that he sounds ridiculous, rambling quickly and shrinking back into himself. Balthazar just lets him finish, eyes still wide, and then he moves forwards again to wrap one hand around each of Castiel’s wrist.

“Cassy,” he starts, commanding, ensuring that Castiel meets his eye. “I do want you,” he continues, and when Castiel starts to move forwards again he uses his hold on Castiel’s wrist to stop him from doing so. “ _But_ , I know that you don’t want me.”

“I do,” Castiel begins to protest, the lie evident in his tone of voice. Balthazar cuts him off with the shake of his head and an indulgent laugh.

“No, you don’t,” he counters, not stopping to let Castiel dispute again. “You’re upset and I’m here, that’s all. I can see how in love with this Winchester wanker you are, and I’m not going to come in between that. Above all, I want you to be happy, and you wouldn’t be with me. Not like you deserve, anyway. I know it hurts a lot right now, but you need time, not to jump into bed with your best friend just because he’s an old pervert that flirts with you too much.”

Castiel breathes out a laugh and relaxes. “Thank you,” he says eventually, causing Balthazar to smile and guide Castiel back to lie across his chest. “You’re too good for me, anyway.”

“Please,” Balthazar counters, a smile in his tone. “I deserve some kind of bloody award for being able to turn you down.”

Castiel protests back and Balthazar stands fast, and they remain curled up together on the sofa. Castiel goes on to tell Balthazar about sleeping with someone else, about Dean finding out and being angry at him, what he’d called him, how Castiel had hurt him right back the way he _knew_ would affect him the most. All through it, Balthazar soothes him, keeps him calm and smiling intermittently, keeps him from wanting to find a drink or a fuck.

Keeps him feeling, well, maybe not _good_ , but definitely ok.

When Balthazar leaves, he presses one kiss to Castiel’s forehead. “It’ll get better, I promise,” he assures, and all Castiel can do is smile weakly and say goodbye. He’s not too sure about better, but maybe everything will be ok, eventually.

Ok is good enough for Castiel, anyway. He never expected more.


	15. Chapter 15

He hadn’t received any calls from his boss or anything like that last night requesting his presence at the Winchester household, so Castiel assumes he has to the day to collect himself. He decides that he’ll go into his office, because he has been neglecting all other duties beside Dean’s article. It’s been a while since Castiel has been into the offices, and standing in the elevator everything feels so much more normal, more routine: more what Castiel is used to it, and so it’s easier to keep a handle on things.

He leaves the elevator at the right floor, walks towards his tiny corner desk and sits in his chair. He takes his laptop out of his bag, loads it up and prepares himself to work on some other work. _Maybe the public interest article_ , he thinks with a small smile. He feels much better today, Balthazar having helped him so much more than he can even appreciate the day before.

Everything is ok for a while: he begins to work on his old and abandoned report, refuses to let any thought of anything other than the topic enter his head while he does. His fingers are tapping away incessantly and he is humming under his breath, some old song that he knows the tune but not the name to, and then he hears voices coming from Mr. Adler’s voice. One is his boss and the other – isn’t.

“Thank you for your time,” Dean says, smiling politely and shaking his hand.

Mr. Adler’s returning smile is fake and vaguely malevolent, just like always. “It’s fine, Mr. Winchester. Thank you for stopping by.”

Dean takes his hand back then, surreptitiously wiping it on the side of his jacket, and Castiel would laugh if he wasn’t overwhelmed with all the panic that he’d been subsiding for the day crashing back into him.

Dean is dressed like usual; leather jacket, jeans and boots, and he looks so out of place here, where everyone wears suits and talks about politics like they’re world leaders. All sense of normalcy and regularity that Castiel had earlier completely vanishes in the face of Dean being here and talking and looking so damn _fine_ that Castiel wants to hit him.

Both Dean and Mr. Adler turn their heads then, right in the direction of Castiel’s booth. He has no time to duck and hide, take cover and avoid the situation like the child he feels akin to right now. They notice him almost simultaneously, Dean’s expression changing minutely before he schools it back to neutrality, while Mr. Adler’s sharkish grin remains plastered to his face.

“Mr. Novak,” he greets, walking towards Castiel. Dean follows close behind, hands migrating to his politics as he look down at his feet more than anything else. “Mr. Winchester here was just in my office talking to me about the project.”

He refers to it as _the_ project, as opposed to _your_ project, and immediately Castiel understands what this is about.

He doesn’t say it yet, though. “Right,” he starts, smiling briefly, wanly. “Anything I should know about?”

Mr. Adler opens his mouth, eyes looking way too maliciously gleeful for what Castiel knows he’s about to say, but Dean cuts him off first.

“Can – can I tell him please?” he asks quietly. Mr. Adler is stunned slightly into silence, but eventually he nods, shrugs, and leaves. After he’s gone, Dean’s eyes flicker to Castiel just once, barely lingering as a flush creeps up his neck. “We, uh. I mean, _I_ decided that maybe it’d be better if I switched journalists for the article.”

Castiel nods curtly. “Ok,” he mutters, and then looks straight up at Dean and paints a smile on his face that he hopes looks more sincere than it actually is. “That’s probably for the best.”

Dean meets his stare, but not his smile. His face looks oddly devoid of any emotion in its features: no set to his mouth, no twitch in his jaw. The only things that gives anything away is the fact that his irises look duller, aren’t shining like they usually do, the golden flecks within the green seeming less colourful now. He stands just by the side of Castiel’s booth, fingers twitching and just _looking_ , acting like he’s got more to say but not just coming out and saying it.

After a minute or two of prolonged silence, wherein the office continued to buzz around them unnoticed as they just stare at one another, Dean talks.

“I’m sorry about what I said,” he admits quietly, and Castiel barely has to think before he realises that Dean is talking about calling Cas a slut. “You were right: I had no right to say that. We’re not together and that’s my fault so – so I just want you to be happy. I’m sorry.”

His words are barely above a whisper, and Castiel can’t tell whether it’s because he’s too upset, or too worried someone else could hear. And isn’t uncertainty the entire problem here?

“I’m sorry, too,” Castiel says, totally sincere.

Dean shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he assures, smiling briefly, a little more warmth in his eyes. “I got assigned to your friend – Balthazar, right?”

“Oh,” Castiel breathes. Balthazar and Dean. _Shit_ , what will Dean do when he finds out that Balthazar knows? He decides to bite the bullet and just tell him. “I – I told Balthazar. About everything. He knows.”

Dean nods, just once. “Ok,” he says, and Castiel hopes that the neutrality in his tone means that he’s ok and won’t flip out. “I guess you had to tell someone, right? Couldn’t keep it bottled up forever, I guess.” Castiel decides not to mention that he’d been doing exactly that for the past seven years, and Dean takes a deep breath before he talks again. “I, uh. I should go. Let you get on with your work and everything.”

It hits Castiel that he probably won’t see Dean again after this. He swallows drily. “Right,” he breathes out, skin tightening. But this is what he needs, what he wants, what needs to happen in order to allow him to get on with his life. He can never have Dean the way that he wants to, and so continuing any kind of relationship with him would only be detrimental to everything. “Yes, I should. Um. Goodbye, then.”

Dean looks down at him, corners of his mouth tight and fingernails clawing at the skin of his palms. “Yeah,” he says, quietly. “Goodbye.”

Dean takes one more second to just look, and then he’s walking away, into the elevator and out of Castiel’s life.

This time there was closure, right? This time Castiel should be able to move on. Dean didn’t leave him alone in the middle of a field, no one yelled or got angry. They were adults, they apologised for acting rashly before and agreed that this was for the best. So why does Castiel’s heart clench up as he watched Dean go, as the metal slides closed and he realises that it was his last chance to say something just then, and now it’s gone?

The backs of his eyes begin to sting, no longer numb like he wants to be. Now, his skin feels too tight, his heart too big as it thuds against his ribcage. He needs to leave, _now_ , so he packs away his things and gets set to rush back home, all of it feeling so familiar to the sensation of when he’d first found out he’d have to see Dean again.

Alone in the elevator, his breathing laboured and his eyes red, he gets a call. From Balthazar, it reads, and just because it’s him he picks up.

“I’m going home,” Castiel says as a start to the conversation. “Dean’s gone and I’m going home and I – I don’t know what to do.”

“I know,” Balthazar replies, sounding calm and placating. “The boss called me earlier to check it was ok that I wrote the article from now on. Are you ok with it?”

Castiel nods slightly to himself. “Yes,” he says, but he knows the uncertainty shows in the tone of his voice. “He knows that you know and – and I can’t see him anymore. I can’t let myself go back down that road and get hurt over and over again, and that’s exactly what would happen if I had to keep seeing him. I just can’t help myself when I’m around him so – so yes. It’s fine that you’re doing it now. For the best.”

“As long as you’re sure.”

“Positive. I just – I think I’m going to go home and not think about anything for a while.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Balthazar says, trying to inject some mirth into his voice. “Would it be alright if I come round tomorrow to take whatever notes you’ve made so far? I understand completely if you don’t want to, of course.”

Castiel doesn’t even have to think. “No, it’s fine. Come over at 10. I’ll give you what I’ve done so far and just – just make sure you show the side of him that deserves to shown. I know he’s made a lot of mistakes, _I_ know that probably more than anyone else, really, but – but he’s a good person. He loves his family and he’s funny and genuine and kind. Will you make sure that comes through, please? For me?”

“Of course,” Balthazar says, more sincere and serious than Castiel thinks he’s ever heard him before. “But only for you. Lord knows it’ll be a struggle not to punch that dick in the face every time I think of what he did to you.”

Castiel breathes out a laugh. “Please don’t punch him, he’s too pretty for that,” he requests, and gets a snort in response.

“That I can concede to,” Balthazar says. “Ok, I should let you go now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye,” Castiel replies, before snapping his phone shut.

He’s out in the parking lot by now, and there he climbs into his car and spends a few minutes just sat behind its wheel, rubbing his hands against the leather and breathing deeply in and out. He never has to see Dean again, and the thought makes his skin itch more than it should by now.

Apparently, there is just no winning when you fall in love with Dean Winchester. But, then again, Castiel knew that from the start.


	16. Chapter 16

The next day Castiel is up and ready by 9:30, having not slept particularly well the previous night. He’s dressed more casual today, old sweater and pair of jeans, because it’s Saturday and he can stay in to work. He’s ready so early that he decides to make himself a cup of tea and have some breakfast – something he rarely remembers to do in the mornings – and he’s halfway through his mug and scrambled eggs when there’s a knock on the door.

“Coming!” he calls out, knowing it’s Balthazar. He places what’s left of the plate of eggs on his kitchen counter, downs the dregs of his tea before putting the mug in the sink, and walks over to the door, already beginning the conversation even as he opens it. “Do you want a drink or som–“

He stops short when he sees what’s on the other side of the door.

Balthazar’s there, sure. But so is Dean. Stood beside him, hands in his pockets, staring down at the floor like he thinks he can be invisible if only he doesn’t make eye contact.

“Hello,” Balthazar says, cautiously cheerful.

“I –” Castiel starts, unsure how to go on. Eventually, he chooses, “What the fuck, Balthazar?”

Balthazar cringes. “I know,” he admits, looking sheepish. “I realise that I seem like a right wanker right now, but – but I just want you two idiots to talk, ok?” Castiel isn’t even in the right state of mind to protest the _idiot_ comment. “So today this Yankee imbecile turns up at my desk, saying he doesn’t want to do the article, that it’s pointless now, and I just. I just think that you two need to actually _talk_ , as in have a conversation wherein no one spreads their legs, and today is your opportunity to do that.”

 “What – no – I can’t –” Castiel stutters, having an internal panic attack.

Balthazar just looks him dead in the eye. “Yes,” he says, his tone leaving no room for negotiation. “You can.”

Castiel breathes. “I –” he starts, and then he lets his eyes flick over to Dean. He’s lifted his head, by now, and is biting his lip with a faint flush on his cheeks, eyes dark and tired. He looks fucking _terrible_ , to be honest, and yet Castiel still thinks he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. “Ok. Ok, fine.”

“Brilliant!” Balthazar exclaims, face lighting up like a Christmas tree. “I’ll leave you two to it, then. Call me, alright Cassy?”

Castiel nods once. “I – yes, ok. I’ll call you. Bye.”

And then Balthazar’s gone, walking down the hall and disappearing down the stairwell, whistling while he goes. It takes a while for Castiel to get up the courage to look at Dean again, but when he does he finds Dean looking straight back at him, guilty.

“I shouldn’t have come,” he says.

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Castiel replies, and sees Dean wince. “But you’re here now so. So come in.”

Dean takes a step forward hesitantly, and then another, and keeps going until he’s inside, hands still in his pockets as he looks around snoopily. Castiel realises that this is the first time Dean will have ever seen the inside of his apartment, and a stupid, traitorous part of himself wants to know what Dean thinks about how Castiel grew up.

They stand for a few minutes, Dean’s eyes raking over the barely lived-in apartment, the reflection of Castiel’s personal life, and Castiel feeling more exposed now, with Dean in his home, than he ever had before. This keeps on going until Castiel’s brain _ticks_ and he thinks of something he needs to ask.

“Why would the article be pointless now?” Castiel asks, and receives only a blank stare from Dean. “Before, Balthazar said you wanted to discontinue the article because it would be pointless now. What the does that even mean?”

Dean ducks his head, a stronger blush on his neck now than before. “You know how I said that I, uh. I knew that you worked for the Post?” Castiel nods, and Dean breathes in sharply, as if steeling himself. “Well, my condition for the article is that you wrote it. I was selfish and I wanted to see you and I told them I’d only agree to it if they got you to write it.”

“Oh,” Castiel replies, coherently. “Oh, ok. I – I suppose that makes sense. You never were one for being in the spotlight, as I recall.”

Dean breathes out a slight laugh. “Yeah, I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out sooner, actually. You always were smart.”

Castiel nods his head absently. “Yes, well, so were you: no one in that town understood mechanics quite like you did. I can’t even count the amount of times I had to have you fix that shoddy stereo I had in my room.”

“Yeah,” Dean breathes, smiling nostalgically. “You still got that thing?”

Castiel can only shake his head. “No, it broke when I was still in college. I – I didn’t have anyone around to fix it for me, anymore.”

“Right,” Dean says, his smile fading almost instantly. “Yeah, of course.”

A minute or two of silence. Then, Castiel breathes out quietly, “Why are you here, Dean? And don’t say because of Balthazar, because you wouldn’t have come if you didn’t have your own reason.”

Dean seems startled by the directness of the question. He blinks, once, twice, and then swallows. “I screwed everything up,” he says, soft voice and sad eyes. “Twice, actually. Fuck, I – I had the fucking chance to prove to you that I’ve changed and I fucking blew it. Every day of my adult life I have spent _fantasising_ about having that night to do over, being able to walk over to you, hold your hand, kiss you, tell my dad that nothing mattered but you. And then I got the opportunity and I acted like a coward, the exact same way I did the first time. I am so, so sorry, Cas.”

The automatic response _it’s alright_ , is on Castiel’s tongue. He doesn’t say it, though, because it’s not.

“That hurt, Dean,” he responds, hands fisting in empty air. “Going through that twice it – it hurt.”

Dean winces. “I know. I’m so sorry. Sammy won’t talk to me because of it. Jess, too. I don’t blame them, either. I hate _myself_ , so it’s understandable that you guys should, too. You most of all, really.”

Dean’s bottom lip is back in between his teeth, and Castiel feels like his legs are shaking. The apartment is too small for all of this between them, all of these things unsaid and futures not lived. It’s like there’s so much between them that it’s all encompassing, like it can’t leave them alone and yet won’t be resolved, and Castiel decides that he needs to be fucking _honest_ here, or nothing’s ever going to be done with.

“I don’t hate you,” he admits quietly, and Dean sucks in a sharp breath. “I _want_ to hate you, believe me, but I can’t. When it’s just the two of us – _God_ , it’s fucking amazing. You smile and laugh and look at me like I’ve always wanted you to, like I’m the only thing in the world. But there is a world out there, Dean, and you’re too scared of how they perceive you. You’re scared of your father, the media, the fans, and I pale into insignificance where they’re concerned. So I – I do love you, Dean, and that won’t stop, but we can’t be together.”

Dean begins to nod, and then aborts the movement. He takes a step forward cautiously, hands coming out his pockets, hanging in the air just above Castiel’s waist. He looks down at his hands, up to Cas, taking a circuit from Cas’ lip up to his eyes, down and then back up again. He licks his lips, flicks his eyes left and then back, fidgeting and clearly so nervous that it makes Castiel feel nervous in return.

“What if – what if we could be together?”

“Dean –” Castiel starts, already pained because he can’t go through this _again_. Dean cuts him off before he can protest properly.

“No,” he says, fingers flexing as he pauses. Castiel is silent as he lowers them to Castiel’s waist, fitting his fingertips around the material of Castiel’s sweater loosely, light enough that Castiel can get away if he wants to. “I don’t want to be apart. _Fuck_ , Cas, I don’t even think I can. I’ve gotten through the past seven years because I thought that maybe you were happy with someone else somewhere, and that’s all I ever wanted. But – but when you came round to mine that day, with those fucking hickeys that some other fucking _asshole_ had given you, I realised that I can’t even think about you with someone else without wanting to rip their throat out.”

Castiel’s breath catches in his throat. “I can be with whomever I want.”

Dean sighs and takes a step closer, leans his forehead against Castiel’s. Castiel is acutely aware of how close their lips are, how all it would take would be a lean forwards and then he could kiss Dean again, fit with him in the only way they seem to know how, seem to be able to keep separate from the rest of the world.

He stops himself from doing it, and Dean speaks. “I know you can,” he murmurs. “Of course you can, but – but I want you to be with me.”

Castiel makes a small sound in the back of his throat, sounding embarrassingly close to a whimper. His eyes fall shut and he leans his forehead more against Dean’s, allows his arms to crawl around Dean’s shoulders and bring their bodies flush together, his face buried in Dean’s neck.

There he can smell Dean: the scent of faintly lingering sweat, cheap soap, expensive aftershave. It’s warm and comforting and feels sickeningly like home, like Castiel’s skin will never fit right unless it’s _this_ he gets to come home to, this he gets to kiss goodnight.

“You wouldn’t come out.” It’s not even a question.

Dean’s body gets slightly more rigid. “No,” he answers reluctantly. “But I’d tell my dad. And Sammy and Jess, and Balthazar knows and – and would we really need to?”

Castiel screws his eyes shut. _No_ , he wants to say. _No, you’re everything that I need. Everything and more, actually, and I don’t want to give up the way you snore or the way you kiss._

Instead, he says what he has to.

“I’m not eighteen anymore,” he replies, sadly. “I can’t be someone’s secret. I won’t hide away and sneak around. I – I know you can’t tell the world, but I also know that I can’t handle going back into the closet for God knows how long. I’m sorry, Dean, but we really can’t be together.”

“So this is it?” Dean asks, voice choked. “We love each other, but it’s not going to work?”

Castiel nods. “Yes,” he answers, simply, and feels Dean’s arm tighten around his waist in response.

“It’s not fair,” he grits out. “This isn’t fucking _fair_.”

Castiel smiles wanly into Dean’s skin. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you? Nothing in life is.”

Dean’s breath of laugh sounds heartbreaking. He gives it a few more seconds, arms tight around Castiel’s waist and his face buried in Castiel’s hair, and then he loosens his grip, steps away. He rubs the back of his hand over each eye, blinks tiredly and smiles hollowly.

“Guess I should go then before one of us starts bawling,” he says, joking, always fucking joking even in the face of heartbreak. He goes to leave, but Castiel hand flies out of its one accord and grips onto his wrist.

“Wait,” Castiel breathes, and then he steps forwards, kisses the confusion off of Dean’s face.  Dean makes a grunt of surprise in the back of his throat, and Castiel swallows it hungrily: if this is the last time, he’s going to make damn sure it’s something worth remembering.

Dean pulls away after a minute, looks Castiel in the eye and pants hotly against Castiel’s mouth. “Is this a good idea?” he asks, and Castiel laughs.

“Probably not,” he admits, and then leans up to press another kiss to Dean’s lips, softer this time. “But I just – I just need to leave with this kind of memory, you know? So how about we make like the teenagers we were always happy as and have sex on the couch?”

The smile that ghosts across Dean’s lips feels like a prize. “Yeah,” he breathes, stepping back, reaching up his hands to cup Castiel’s jaw, so close that he kisses the words into Castiel’s lips. “Why the fuck not? Go out with a bang.”

Castiel snorts unattractively. “That was an awful pun,” he declares.

Dean’s answer is to kiss him. Dean’s lips are sweet and warm, his tongue hot as it curls into Castiel’s mouth. His hands are firm and bruising, slipping underneath Castiel’s sweater, fingertips digging into his skin. Dean holds Cas closer than he’s ever held him before, hands insistent and desperate because he knows and Castiel knows that this is the last time he’ll ever be able to do this.

The intensity of everything, the knowledge of finality in their movements, means that it’s scant minutes before they are both undressed down to their boxers. Hands roam planes and contours of skin, mouth connecting messily and hastily, frantic and needing, and Castiel manoeuvres Dean to the couch, pushes him down onto it and then follows, a knee either side of Dean’s thighs and their cocks rubbing through the thin fabric of their boxers.

“Cas,” Dean murmurs, hands in Castiel’s hair, hips rocking upwards in search of friction.

Castiel takes a second to pull back, look down, see Dean beneath him. There’s a faint flush across his cheeks, pink beneath the smattering of freckles that Castiel has always wanted to trace his fingers over, play with like it’s a connect-the-dots. Before, when they were just so young, Castiel had always been rebutted in his attempts; batted away by Dean’s hand and kissed into submission. Now, he realises sadly, he’ll never get the chance to actually do it.

He buries his head in Dean’s shoulder, blinks back the stinging in his eyes. He stays there until Dean moves his hands to Castiel’s jaw, brings him back up until their faces are close, staring back at one another with every word they should say to each other in their eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Dean whispers, thumbs rubbing over Castiel skin. “I love you.”

Castiel leans forwards, presses his lips to Dean’s in something that’s not quite a kiss. “I love you,” he whispers back, and then crashes his mouth to Dean’s.

He shoves his tongue in furiously, grinds his ass down onto Dean’s dick, eliciting a loud moan. He moves his hands to Dean’s side, trails lightly up and down with his fingertips while he juxtaposes this tentativeness with the rolls of his hips, the bruising force of his mouth. Dean seems to understand what Castiel is trying to do here, because he gives back just as hard and rough and furious as he gets.

It’s a litany of rolling hips and bruising kisses, a symphony erupting of Dean’s moans and Castiel’s whimpers. They move fast and fluidly together, knowing that they should take their time, learn curves of muscles and patches of skin, kiss every part they’ve ever thought about and breathe memories into the contours of bones.

Except Castiel knows that he can’t do that, and he thinks Dean knows it, too.

If they were to do it that way, on a bed, somewhere traditional, normal, expected, it would hurt more to give it up. At least this feels as decrepit and iniquitous as it should do, feels like a stolen moment they were never meant to have, and that will make it all the more easy to leave when it’s over.

Normalcy would equate to fantasies; dreams and wishes of a future where they’re together, happy with each other. This, with its urgency and immorality, feels like the end of an affair, and hasn’t Castiel always been the mistress to Dean’s career, anyway?

Castiel kisses Dean and ruts down against him, feels Dean’s hard cock nudging against his ass, feels his own peaking out of his boxer shorts, wet at the tip. Dean’s hands are on his ass, keeping him moving, faster and faster as he moans and bucks up wildly. One of the hands moves around, pulls Castiel’s boxer shorts down slightly and takes a hold of his dick, pumps it to the roll of his own hips.

They move in tandem, getting closer and closer as the minutes roll by, as the end draws in. Dean’s hand continues to move up and down, his thumb brushing over the tip where pre-come pearls, and Castiel whimpers, hands on Dean’s jaw, keeping their mouths pressed together even when they’re not kissing.

He can feel more than hear the words Dean is whispering, can feel them sink into the indent of his lips and take home, settle there to stay until Castiel’s loses his mind from them.

There are endearments thrown in, ones that are familiar coming out of Dean’s mouth in these times, like _baby_ and _honey_ and _angel_ , things he’d never be caught dead saying without them alone, naked, wrapped up in one another.

Then there are the unfamiliar things, like _I love you_ and _I need you_ and _please, please don’t leave me_.

Castiel screws his eyes shut and rolls his hips down harder, chokes the words out Dean’s mouth just because he can’t handle hearing them anymore. It’s not long before Castiel feels close, on the edge, Dean’s lips against his own, Dean’s cock against his ass, Dean’s heart in the palm of his hands.

“Dean,” Castiel murmurs, and feels Dean nod.

“Yeah, me too,” he replies, hands kneading Castiel’s ass, mouth sucking at Castiel’s jaw.

He deliberately starts to suck on the hickeys left on Castiel’s neck, the ones not made by him, the ones made by someone whose name Castiel can’t even fucking remember. He bites and licks, brings blood to the surface and marks, marks as possession even though they’re not together, knows that they can’t be now, for good.

Castiel comes trembling, boxers and stomach getting sticky, skin feeling sensitive everywhere, especially in all the places Dean is touching him. Dean follows after and Castiel keeps the presence of mind to watch him; to see the way his pupils almost block out the green irises, the way his mouth is parted slightly around a gasp. Castiel kisses him through it, waits until the shudders die down, when Dean goes still against him once again.

Their mouths are still against each other, breaths hot and sticky, the room stinking of sex and sweat. After a while Castiel realises that this is it, he needs to move away from Dean and there’s a fucking metaphor in there somewhere that Castiel doesn’t have the presence of mind to decipher. He lifts one leg, swings it over and settles on the couch next to Dean, boxers sticky and cock sensitive, feeling cold and naked and alone.

Dean stands up, then, rearranges his presumably sticky shorts and redresses quickly. All the while Castiel just sits and watches, silence in the apartment even as Castiel’s brain buzzes with pleas for Dean to stay.

Dean stops when he’s dressed, looks around again, his gaze eventually landing on Castiel. He opens his mouth and then shuts it again, blinks convulsively as he just looks at Castiel.

“Please be happy,” Dean says, eventually.

 _I can’t be without you_ , Castiel thinks. “You too,” he replies instead.

Dean nods once, lingers slightly, and then walks out of the door. The _click_ of the door shutting sounds deafening in the silence of the apartment, and Castiel curls in on himself. The apartment is cold and empty, and Castiel can feel that in himself: can feel the reverberation of his future running through his veins, condemning him to a life of too much work, not enough laughter. No more Dean.

Sure, he still has Balthazar, his family, even Sam and Jess if he wants them. And that makes him happy, of course it does, he loves these people, all of them, even if he doesn’t really talk to his family all that much anymore.

Except, somehow, it’s just not enough. Without Dean, nothing will ever fit right. But he can’t have him.

He never really could.


	17. Chapter 17

Then come the next five days. Castiel refuses to leave his apartment, gets Balthazar to pick up the necessary things from work and calls in sick every day. He can tell that his boss wants to argue, but has to let him off, because Castiel has never missed a single day since he’s worked there, and he’s accumulated enough time for this.

He remains curled up on the couch most of the time, with his face buried into it until it no longer smells like Dean. He hates that he has nothing left of him now besides the marks on his neck, hates that they will fade one day and leave him devoid of anything other than the memories in his head. Balthazar, Sam and Jess all visit intermittently, making sure he eats, washes, isn’t drinking too much.

He always greets them kindly. Invites them in, makes them drinks, cooks them things. They’re his friends and they’re trying to help; it’s not their faults that he’s beyond it.

During one visit, Sam and Jess struggle to look sad and consoling. Castiel susses it out as soon as he sees the diamond engagement ring on Jess’ finger.

“He proposed at the top of the Statue of Liberty!” she had squealed, proffering her hand to Castiel.

Castiel had smiled in return, genuinely, happy for his friends, because they were allowed to be in love, allowed to have each other, and just because he wasn’t able to have that wasn’t going to make him bitter. He even teased them for being typical tourists and doing it at that horrid place, gaining laughter out of the both them.

Everything’s not fine, and he’s not exactly getting better, but the three of them are there for him, and that’s all he can hope for at this moment in time.

By the time the Friday rolls around he’s at least showered by 10 in the morning, dressed normally in jeans and a t-shirt, eating properly without being forced. He’s still sat on the couch, book open in his lap but mind wandering elsewhere.

Sam and Jess went back to California yesterday, Sam having made up with Dean on Castiel’s insistence. He got a phone call just before they boarded their plane, telling Castiel that if he ever needed anything, all he had to do was call. Castiel thanked them gratefully and wished them a safe flight.

Balthazar is at the office, not working on Dean’s article, though, because it had been discontinued. Dean had asked for no money in its making, and so the contract was moderately easy to rip up and throw away. Castiel knows that he has the day to himself, because usually Balthazar comes over on his way back from work, makes sure that Castiel doesn’t look too tired and gives him a kiss on the forehead and a muttered _just give it time_.

So he’s just sat, thinking about things he shouldn’t be, like Dean and the future they could never have. He’s stupid and masochist, but his mind wanders and sometimes he just can’t help it. His phone rings on the coffee table in front of him, and when he looks at the screen it flashes a number he knows off by heart, even after only learning it a few weeks ago.

His breath catches in his throat and his mind goes into panic mode. He opens and presses it slowly to his ear.

“Dean?”

A small pause, and then, “Turn on channel five.”

His voice is choked, sounding far off and distant and what the fuck is that persistent clicking noise in the background?

“Dean, what –“

“Just,” Dean cuts him off, “turn on channel five, yeah? It’ll explain everything, I promise.”

“I –” Castiel starts, and then trails off. “Ok.”

There’s a small silence then, and just before the line goes dead Castiel thinks he hears Dean mutter _thank you_ under his breath.

Once the line goes dead, Castiel puts his phone back on the coffee table, picks up the remote beside it and turns the TV on, flicks channels until he reaches channel five. The channel shows a stage, fitted only with a podium, a microphone, and a few chairs on its left. In front of it are rows and rows of seats, filled with what Castiel presumes are journalists, if the Dictaphones and flashing cameras are anything to go by.

He starts to wonder if maybe this is some kind of story Castiel should be involved in, wonders if maybe Dean is tipping him off to help with his career, give Castiel the opportunity he was supposed to have with Dean’s report. The notion is entirely vanquished, though, when he realises where the podium is.

“Oh my God,” he says out loud.

That’s _Dean’s_ house. He can see the green grass and colourful flowers that told Castiel that Dean obviously had a professional gardener, the large swimming pool that Castiel had teased him mercilessly for.

Why the fuck are the press at Dean’s house? What the _fuck_ is happening?

He gets his answer when Dean walks onto the stage, followed by the PA that Castiel remembers and a few other people that he doesn’t recognise. Dean looks really nervous, hands wringing and staring down at his feet as he walks, stopping, alone, in front of the podium.

He taps the microphone, looking so much like a clichéd moron that Castiel smiles despite his confusion, and coughs just before he speaks.

“So,” he starts, followed by an anxiety ridden laugh. “Bet you’re all wondering why the hell I called this whole thing, huh?” A nervous laughter smatters around the audience, and Castiel sees Dean suck in a few deep breaths before he starts talking again. “Well, as most of you know, I’m pretty awesome.” This time the laughter is genuine, and Castiel joins in too. “I put my performance down to how much I love my job. Soccer is my life, and it always has been. I love it too much to ever give it up permanently and yet – yet it’s taken a lot from me, too.”

Castiel can’t breathe. This isn’t going where he thinks it’s going, right?

“You see,” Dean continues, the entire audience as rapt as Castiel is. “As much as I love soccer, I know it’s got some faults. As is common in a lot of sports, it has a lot of bigotry and hatred connoted to it. Its fans’ – not all of them, of course, but a big enough portion that it’s a real problem – use verbal slurs in order to insult their foes. Even from the field I can hear the racism, ableism, and the – the homophobia. It’s a well known fact that there have been very few openly gay player in the major leagues in either American or British soccer history. Well, we’re about to add another.”

“Fuck!” Castiel squeaks out. His phone is going fucking _crazy_ with its ringing on the coffee table, but Castiel is ignoring it in favour of looking at Dean.

“Yep, folks. I’m gay. Soccer star Dean Winchester is gay. And do you know what? I defy _anyone_ to find that even half as repulsive as some of the words I hear flung around so carelessly these days. It’s the 21 st Century, for God’s sake, and yet I still hear someone saying _faggot_ or _queer_ most days of my life. Hell, it’s the reason I am twenty-five years old and only just telling the world about a part of myself that I should _not_ have to hide away.”

The phone buzzes so consistently that it falls off the table, and Castiel pays it no mind. Instead, he stands up, walks closer to the TV, kneels down in front of it so close that the pixels begin to blur and he can hear the fuzz of them ringing in his ears. He reaches out a hand, hovers it just above the TV, above the image of where Dean stands, righteous and indignant and _holy fucking shit_ telling the actual truth, for once, doing the one thing Castiel never dared expect from him.

“So, yes. I, Dean Winchester, am a gay man and a soccer player. And I think it’s goddamn disgusting that I’ve only just come out now.”

There’s a small silence when he’s finished talking, and if Castiel looks close enough he can see a small smile on Dean’s face, satisfied and victorious. It slips, however, the second the frantic shouting from the reporters begins.

Castiel can’t hear what’s been shouted, and Dean’s eyes have gone wide with panic. Eventually, he realises that he’s going to have to actually pick someone, and so he points his finger in what Castiel presumes is a random direction from the way his face is still twisted in anxiety, and a woman stands up in response.

Silence falls when he stands, and then she speaks, loud and clear and invasive. “Justine Makowski, SPORT magazine. First off, may I say congratulations. That must have been very difficult for you to do.” She pauses, and Dean smiles, wide and blinding and making Castiel’s heart stutter in his chest. “But I have to ask, why now? Why choose to go through everything that this will result in? Did something happen?”

“Uh,” Dean stammers, and Castiel would laugh at how much he clearly did not think the aftermath through if he wasn’t frozen with nervousness. “Uh, well, I guess it was a number of things. My brother, Sam, got engaged recently. Gorgeous girl, really sweet, and I’m so, so happy for them. But it, uh. It got me thinking that if I carried on the way I am now, I’d never get to have that.”

Castiel’s heart lifts. The woman seems unimpressed by the answer. Clearly not juicy enough for her.

“Well, congratulations to them, too,” she says, quick and bland, clearly fake. Castiel laughs slightly at the thought of Sam watching this, full of indignation at his impending marriage and its shake off from the media. “But why _now_? Your brother’s engagement can’t be the first time you’ve realised that your life won’t be the same if you stay in the closet.”

“Well, no,” Dean admits, frowning slightly. “There – there was someone.” Castiel draws in a breath, waits on it for Dean to continue. The phone is buzzing so hard Castiel’s surprised it doesn’t drill a hole in the floor. “We weren’t together properly because of my job and my life and my – my dad, too. He knew how hard it’d be for me to be gay in soccer, and I – I listened to him and let this guy go. I guess my brother’s engagement was more just a kind of, I don’t know, _catalyst_ for me finally telling my dad to go screw himself.”

Someone else stands up, and that’s a cue for the first woman to sit back down, scowling as she does.

“Mr. Winchester?” he addresses first, gaining Dean’s attention. “Hi. David Wilson, from Sports Illustrated. Are you saying that your father does not approve of this decision?”

Dean’s snort of laughter sounds both derisive and hollow. “Jesus, no. Told me that if I went through with this he’d never speak to me again, so – so I guess I’m kinda fatherless now, huh?”

The audience is silent and Castiel’s heart clenches. He may have always wanted Dean to tell his father to just _fuck off_ and let him lead his own life, seeing its consequences makes him wish, now more than ever, that it didn’t have to be this way.

Someone else stands up, and it takes a second for it to register with Castiel who it is.

“Balthazar?” he exclaims confusedly, taking in the mess of blond hair and smirk. Dean’s smile seems conspiring when he sees Balthazar, and Castiel hates them both a little bit for not telling him about any of this.

“Balthazar Talbot,” he states, sounding smug. “New York Post. So, this guy. Is he worth it?”

Castiel sucks in a breath at the same time Dean does. Then, Dean turns to the camera, looks directly into it. Castiel’s heart stops in its tracks, and it’s like time passes extra slowly as he waits for Dean to answer, feeling as though there isn’t a screen between, as though no one else in the world even exists except for the two of them.

“Yeah,” Dean breathes eventually, the ghost of a smile on his face. “Yeah, he really is. Hell, he’s worth _more_ , and I want to show it to him.”

“You gonna go get your man then, Winchester?” Balthazar asks, and the audience laughs.

Dean takes a second, a small smile on his face, still looking straight into the camera, right at Castiel, right fucking _through_ him. He swipes a tongue over his lips, allows his eyes to flicker left and then back to the camera lens, and then he says something.

“I don’t know. Am I allowed?”

Castiel has never gotten across town quicker in his life.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, that's it, all finished! Thank you to everyone that followed its progress and sorry for abrupt changes in posting times, but I'm glad (some of you) enjoyed it and I hope I ended it ok enough! I've already written a one-shot sequel for this piece, so I'll probably post around next week. Bye!

ONE YEAR LATER

Castiel Novak is sat at a desk on a Saturday morning. He’s not wearing his glasses today, because Jess told him he had to look impeccable for the photos, and his glasses look like some kind of Elvis Costello rip off, apparently. He is fiddling with the cuffs of his shirt, straightening his tie and smoothing down his rampant hair to no avail.

If Jess is so hell bent on having her wedding photos absolutely perfect, her only choice is to not allow Castiel to be in them.

He looks up when the door swings open, and smiles automatically.

“Hello,” he greets.

“Hi there,” Dean says back, walking over to Cas and leaning down to kiss him. It starts off a small peck, becomes lingering and with a hint of tongue, and Castiel has to pull back, breathless and chuckling, so that they don’t end up having sex in the back room of a church.

Castiel’s all for adventurous sex, but he’s pretty sure that’s the kind of thing that gets you a one way ticket to sin city.

“How’s Sam doing?” Castiel asks.

Dean laughs. “Freaking the fuck out,” he answers. “Keeps going on and on about how she’s too good for him and she’s gonna realise it at the altar and run away with the ring bearer.”

Castiel frowns. “I sincerely doubt that Jess will do anything of the sort,” he says. “The ring bearer is her ninety year old grandfather.”

Dean barks out another laugh. “That is true,” he concedes, and then leans down again to kiss Castiel, not allowing Castiel to pull away this time for at least five minutes. “You look fucking hot, by the way. I’ve always loved you in a suit.”

“You too,” Castiel replies, biting at Dean’s jaw. “We don’t have time for sex somewhere less blasphemous, right?”

“No,” Dean replies sadly, tilting his head to allow Cas to pepper kisses to his neck. “Jess is gonna be here any minute. I have to get back to Sam soon, too. Make sure the little bitch doesn’t climb out of a window or something else dumb like that. I only came through to make sure you hadn’t gotten so frustrated with keeping your clothes straight you ripped ‘em off. Little upset that you haven’t, actually.”

Castiel grins, pressing one last kiss to Dean’s lips before standing up. “Later, honey,” he says with a wink. “But right now we have a couple to join together for the rest of eternity. You go find your brother and _calm him down_ , no being a jerk like usual.” Dean opens his mouth to protest, and then shuts it when he realises he has no real argument. “I’m going to go take my seat. Good luck, best man.”

He moves past Dean then, receiving a smack to his ass and a low chuckle. He walks out into the church, takes a seat beside Jo and waits for everything to be in place. After a few minutes Sam and Dean walk out, Dean’s arm around Sam’s shoulders, him having to lean up to do so. Both Jo and Cas laugh slightly at that, and Dean obviously hears it because he turns around to scowl at them. Before he can do it for too long, though, the door opens and in walks Jess.

She looks absolutely _beautiful_ , blond hair falling in curls around her face, smile lighting up the whole room. When Castiel glances back to Sam, he sees that all prior nervousness has melted off his face, replaced by pure, unadulterated joy. Castiel grins in response, because if there are two people who are meant to be for each other, it is definitely Sam and Jess.

Then, he catches Dean’s eye, smiles even wider, feels his chest flutter, and realises that maybe there’s four.

The wedding starts after that, the priest picking up the ceremony with passages of the bible and all that stuff that is inherent to weddings. Sam and Jess can barely tear their eyes away from one another, so wrapped up in themselves and their happiness. Occasionally, Castiel glances over to Dean and sees him rub at his eyes with the back of his hand, wiping away what Castiel presumes are tears.

And because Castiel is a good boyfriend, he decides not to mention it to him later.

 _Boyfriend_ , Castiel thinks again. He can actually call himself Dean’s _boyfriend_ now. Can say it to anyone who asks, can say it anytime he wants, really, because everyone knows now and it’s not a dirty secret.

Sure, there’d been some backlash. There was bound to be. There were always going to be bigots out there, people who called them freaks of nature, abominations. But Dean hadn’t lost his job, hadn’t lost one of the most important things in the world to him. It’d been reasoned that Dean Winchester was the _shit_ in soccer – mostly by Dean himself, but everyone agreed – and so any team willing to let him go just because of what he did in his personal life were the dumbest idiots going.

Castiel had even gotten to write his article. Except, instead of an insight into Dean Winchester, it’d turned into an exposition of all that Dean Winchester _entailed_. After Dean came out, numerous other sports stars did. In fact, Dean opened some kind floodgates: suddenly, there were people everywhere, from every sport and every nationality, saying that they no longer wanted to live lies, that they wanted to be proud of themselves and their partners, just like Dean was proving himself to be.

Castiel wrote an entire feature on homosexuality and its presentation within all forms of modern day media, using his newly acquired – and newly hated – fame that came with being Dean Winchester’s infamous boyfriend to gain more intel. He used interviews with Dean, his teammates, and everyone else that reached out to them during the time.

Both Dean and Castiel’s professional lives had remained intact – flourishing, even, for Castiel – but the same couldn’t exactly be said for the families.

Castiel’s were fine, naturally. The day after the revelation, when Dean had deemed it suitable to allow them to leave the bedroom, get something to eat and breathe in some air that didn’t smell like sweat and sex, he’d returned all the phone calls from the people he’d been ignoring.

First, there was Balthazar, and amidst the thanking Cas managed a slip in an _oh, and go fuck yourself for going behind my back_ , too.

Then, there was every member of his family, having worked Castiel out to be the mystery someone due to the circumstances in which he left at eighteen. Luke congratulated him on tempting the all American hero into a life of sin, Anna squealed mostly incoherently, Gabriel left it at a _well done, little cousin, that one’s hot_ , and Michael just gave a sullen _why didn’t you tell me_?

They all accepted it fairly easily, each one saying they had their suspicions, anyway, and that was it, Novaks told and everyone happy.

It wasn’t so easy with the eldest Winchester, though. No one has seen or spoken to John since, even now. They’d sent him an invite to the wedding with no reply, and the only reason they know he’s still alive is because he’s still cashing the cheques Dean sends him monthly to make sure he’s not dying on a kerb somewhere.

Castiel knows that Dean hates this, not seeing his father, his father actively hating him for going against his wishes, but also knows that Dean would rather have this life than the one he’d had before. He’d said it once, quietly mumbled into Castiel’s skin, and the only thing Castiel could think to do in response was kiss him slowly and deeply, make it so that he was smiling again.

The past year definitely hasn’t been easy, but it’s definitely been worth it.

It’s been worth it for the way Dean wakes him up with tea and smile, the way they’ve moved Castiel into Dean’s home so that they can be together, always.  Dean admitted that living alone in such a big house, Dean had never felt like he had a home. Castiel said the same thing about his apartment, and they’d agreed that with the both of them sharing a kitchen, a couch, a bed, everything is warmer and more colourful: they both have a home.

Castiel snaps back to attention when Sam and Jess exchange rings, both smiling widely with tears brimming their eyes. They say all the necessary words and then, like no time has passed at all, the priest is announcing them man and wife, telling Sam he may now kiss the bride.

Which Sam does. Very enthusiastically. In fact, it goes on for so long that people begin to catcall from the seats, Jo in particular, and they only pull away when Dean lays a hand on Sam’s shoulder and bodily removes him from Jess’ lips.

They pull away, smiling, blushing, so fucking happy as they stare at one another in wonder, and then the music begins again and they make their way out of the church, people congregating outside to throw confetti at them. Castiel is still stood with Jo, having becoming increasingly close to her over the past year, and just after Sam and Jess climb into the wedding car to take them to the reception, Cas feels an arm curl around his hips.

“They’re perfect for each other, aren’t they,” Dean states, chin on Castiel’s shoulder and mouth by his ear.

Castiel turns slightly to brush their lips together. “Yes, they are,” he replies, and he smiles, wide and happy as he thinks _we are, too_.

Everyone makes their way to the reception then, held at the Californian Hilton Hotel, because Dean insisted on paying for the entire wedding, honeymoon included. Dean and Cas take the Impala, holding hands over the gearstick as they make their way over there, all set to get drunk and tease Jess that there’s no getting out of this now.

First comes the cocktail hour, where Castiel finds Balthazar to talk to. He’d been invited to the reception after becoming close to Sam, joining forces in their conspiring to get Cas and Dean together properly. After that, everyone is seated, and Sam and Jess come in, taking their place at the high table, where Dean, Cas, and Jess’ parents are already seated. Then there’s the dinner. Elaborate food in small portions, including more things with names Castiel can’t pronounce than he thinks he’s ever seen before in one place. At one point, Dean leans over to him and promises that they can run by White Castle on the way home to pick up some burgers, and Castiel’s response is to kiss him, _hard_.

Dinner is followed by speeches and Dean’s one as best man is so perfect that there’s not a single dry eye in the room. When he’s finished Sam hugs him, and then Jess does, and Castiel curls a hand around his thigh and presses a soft kiss to his cheek.

“That was lovely,” Castiel tells him.

“Yeah, well, I’m awesome,” he replies, but his narcissism is slightly ruined by the flush that colours his cheeks and the glassiness of his eyes.

Sam and Jess have their first dance as a married couple next, both gangly and uncoordinated as they move around the dance floor, murmuring and laughing to one another, looking happier in this moment than Castiel thinks he’s ever seen them before. They dance to Edward Sharpe, and Cas has never heard this song before, but something within it resonates within him.

About halfway through the song, other couples are invited to join the dance. Castiel is perfectly content to just sit and watch, because he is _not_ a natural dancer and he doesn’t want to embarrass himself, but then Dean stands up, extends a hand and smiles down at Cas. Castiel doesn’t even consider saying no, so he stands up and takes Dean’s hand, allows himself to be taken onto the dance floor, have two arms wrapped around his waist and wrapping his own around Dean’s shoulders in return. He buries his face into Dean’s neck, noses at his jaw and presses absent kisses there, oblivious to everything but the song circling them and feeling safe and secure in Dean’s arms.

“Hey,” Dean mutters, loud enough to be heard over the song but quiet enough that it’s only the two of them listening. “Nice wedding, huh?”

Castiel nods. “Beautiful. They’re so happy.”

“They are.” A pause, and then murmured, low and quiet, “We are, too.”

“Of course, we are,” Cas replies, lifting his head, looking Dean in the eye and seeing a secret hidden in the corner of his irises.

He leans forward to kiss Dean softly, like a promise. They remain that way for a while, pressing soft kisses to one another’s lips, moving gently along with the music, swaying with the rest of the crowd but feeling entirely separate from it, too.

Then Dean says something into the indent of Castiel’s lips.

“Marry me.”

Castiel pulls back, eyes wide. “What?”

“Marry me,” Dean says again, smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I love you so much, Cas, and I want to spend every day of the rest of my life with you now that I can. So – so how about marrying me?”

“I –” Castiel begins. He looks into Dean’s eyes, specks of gold amongst the green, close enough to see every freckle that dusts Dean’s face, the one he counted all those months ago when they had the time and came up with 73 flecks of beauty. Castiel doesn’t even have to think. “Yes. Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”

Dean’s smile is blinding, and then they’re kissing, no longer moving to the music, too wrapped up in each other to care that they’re essentially just making out on the middle of the dance floor. After a minute, or maybe twenty, who even knows, the song’s changed by now but who knows what’s passed during the time Castiel spent exploring Dean’s mouth with his tongue, smiling so hard it felt like his jaw would break, they pull away from one another.

Sam and Jess dance by them, smiling at one another and acting basically the same as Dean and Cas – as though nothing else exists. They don’t tell anyone that night, allowing Sam and Jess to have their wedding, intent on calling them the next day, telling them on their honeymoon.

But that doesn’t mean they don’t share secret smiles, lingering kisses. Once, even, Dean leans over to him and whispers, “I’ve got a ring, by the way. Back home.” Castiel spends the rest of the night with his ring finger twitching, anxious to feel the weight of a gold band on it already.

It doesn’t matter that no one knows just yet; they’ll announce it in the morning. Anyway, they’ve got all the time in the world to be each other’s.


End file.
